The Times of the Mara
by kiernanfan
Summary: The Mara has returned, infinitely more powerful than before, destroying whole civilizations in seconds. What does this have to do with a New York hockey player, his brilliant physicist friend who helped him pass high school and their circle of friends? (ALSO BABY DADDY CROSSOVER: Other characters Adam M, Danny W, Riley P, Ben W. Two-chapter story.)
1. The Times of the Mara

_Welcome to the first, and almost certainly the last, Doctor Who/The Big Bang Theory/Baby Daddy crossover. The key thing to point out is that this is first and foremost a Doctor Who story. It is structured like a Doctor Who story, in two parts resembling a two episode adventure, that would be as long as the four episodes in the classic series. The struggle the Doctor and his friends fight against the Mara are the core of the story, and the characters of the other two shows are clearly subordinate to it. The Doctor Who characters have their "real" names, while the characters from the other two series, not all of whom appear in this story, have their names changed. Moreover they appear a quarter-century before the series they take place in. There's a reason for that and fans of at least one of the series are going to regret finding the answer. Most important, this story is not only part of a larger Doctor Who continuity which exists at this moment entirely in my head, but it introduces a villain who is intended to be the Doctor's final and most deadly nemesis, the one who finally kills him in the final episode. Spoiler alert, or to be more precise, non-spoiler alert, that villain isn't actually revealed in this episode, although I can say that villain's existence has been implied from the very beginning of the show._

 **Sunday, July 16, 1939**

It was the last summer of peace that Paris would see for a long time, arguably for a quarter century if one counts the colonial wars that France would fight after the death of Hitler. It was not the good Sunday many Parisians would have wished for in retrospect. Already clouds were forming over the city, which would culminate in fierce thunderstorms that evening. Nor was the atmosphere especially pleasant around one particular cafe in Montparnasse. When not thinking of the threat of war, many of the university students, aspiring painters and would be novelists were concerned about the threat of a Fascist coup or, more rarely, and understandably so, of a Communist revolution. The tourists were not happy with the weather, and the local population was hardly optimistic about the lethargic economy after the Depression that had hit France with severe, if slightly delayed force. The staff at this one cafe worried about their apartments' rent, their inadequate plumbing, as well as whether they would have jobs when the tourist season ended. (They would, as soldiers.) The one thing that brightened their overcast day was that the trio of English tourists they were serving, notwithstanding the very thick Scots accent of the tallest and oldest of them, spoke impeccable French.

As it happened, that man was not really a man at all, and in fact had infinitely less in common with Scottish people than the waiters, or any other Frenchmen and women. He was, of course, the Doctor, known as the twelfth Doctor to exactly no one alive, since there were at least thirteen, arguably fourteen incarnations in his past and most other people's futures. After what appeared to be decades but was actually centuries of fairly distinct costumes, the Doctor was wearing a jacket, a dark shirt and slacks that was not that different from the Bohemians in the district. He was convivial today, apparently the charming and witty self that existed in nearly all of his incarnations. But his first companion couldn't help but notice his subtle but constant looks at the clock on his far left hand side. She was Clara Oswald, and she was tastefully dressed in a pleasant skirt regardless of whether it was 1939 or the three quarters of a century later when she had actually got her clothes. She was pretty, brunette, clever, thoughtful and had died the first two times the Doctor had met her. In their many adventures together, she had seen him die, only to be reborn into his present form, not to mention apparently die only to be rescued by a Bootstrap paradox. Notwithstanding an attempt on her part to destroy the keys to the TARDIS to rescue her dead boyfriend, the two had developed a close relationship based on mutual respect.

That was definitely not the case with the third member of the trio. Adam Mitchell had the dubious honor of being the one companion, out of the dozens the Doctor had known, whom the Doctor had the least respect for. To be precise, the Doctor respected all the other companions and viewed Adam with contempt. This was a bit unfair, because unknown to the Doctor, one of those companions had betrayed him, and worse. Certainly, the Doctor had good reason to be annoyed with Mitchell. An earlier incarnation had invited him along after encountering what only appeared to be the last Dalek in the universe. Going hundreds of thousands of years to the Earth in the future Mitchell has succumbed to the temptation to use the advanced technology of the time for his own selfish interest. This involved implanting an ultra-advanced computer into his head, which would appear at the click of one's fingers. It also involved putting the Doctor in mortal danger from the evil alien who controlled Earth in the far future. As a punishment, the Doctor immediately returned him to London, telling Adam that he didn't deserve his friendship. Three incarnations and centuries later for the Doctor, he and Clara were spending one pleasant Tuesday in London when they were attacked by alien assassins. This was more disconcerting than usual, since the 12th Doctor had kept a low profile. He had found it useful for people to believe that his previous incarnation had been the one who actually died, so it was odd that enemies knew he was even alive. Very quickly the assassins had put a force field around the TARDIS, as well as putting taps on all forms of electronic communication in London. Only an incredibly advanced computer system could save Clara and the Doctor. The Doctor immediately dashed to Adam's home, where only two weeks had passed for him, explained to him the situation and by a combination of flattery and tendentious rationalization, shanghaied him into helping them against the assassins. Adam, or more accurately the computer inside his head, was essential to the victory, which ended 50,000 years in the future and 3,000 light years away, and the assassins all committing suicide. The Doctor had traced them to the comparatively minor villain who had hired them for revenge, and all the issues seemed settled.

The Doctor did not believe that for a moment, and Adam's complacency on this point only increased his contempt for him. He wanted to take him back to London and drop him off, but it was convenient to have an incredibly advanced computer on hand. True, clicking his fingers and then using his sonic screwdriver to activate the computer gave Adam a headache, and it was difficult to pretend to respect him. Certainly he did not respect Adam's use of Twitter, which Adam was explaining while scarfing down madeleines.

"Twitter must be the stupidest idea ever. Why would you create a communication system that has no more 140 characters?"

"You could argue that it encourages precision and concision."

"No, it doesn't. It just only allows short simple-minded ideas and brief insults."

"Look, they've got this new 'heart' character."

"Oh wonderful. Now we can communicate like pre-pubescent teenagers. Anyway, you can't communicate with Twitter because nobody has it in 1939."

"You adjusted Clara's cell phone allowing her to communicate across time."

"Clara, you may have forgotten, is considerably more responsible than you, and is certainly not likely to radically alter world history by trying to use advanced technology for her narrow-minded interest."

"I said I was sorry."

"Yes, and you can show your contrition by not rushing out and playing with the next highly advanced technology."

Adam gave up and got up to look at some pastries near the cashier. "We're waiting for someone, aren't we?" asked Clara.

"What makes you say that?"

"Well you've watching the clock behind me very subtly and very intently. Is it someone who actually lives in this era?'

"Don't assume too..." but then the Doctor abruptly stopped.

"Doctor?"

"Listen. Listen very carefully." And at first Clara heard nothing outside the normal sounds of the late thirties Parisian Sunday. But she heard in the background something low and foreboding. "Is that the Cloister Bell?"

The Doctor abruptly got up. "We've got to to go, now." He quickly deposited several thousands francs on the table and called Adam to leave. He and Clara raced through the exit. Then a few seconds the Doctor raced back, abruptly grabbed Adam who was still deciding what pastry to buy, and quickly dragged him to the TARDIS. Which then dematerialized.

Inside the Doctor shouted instructions to Clara to make the TARDIS go faster while the Cloister Bell tolled louder and louder. Adam was confused. "I don't understand. This is a time machine and can arrive at any second. Why do we have to go fast at at all?" A sudden jerk forward sent Adam sprawling to the floor. "We can't afford to lose a single second!" the Doctor shouted.

"Where are we going" asked Clara?

"To the great metropolis of the Tachocopoti. Try imagining a cross between alligators and octopi. It has 80 million people there."

 **Tachocopoti 4 April 27, 10036**

The TARDIS landed and the three got out. All they saw was an enormous expanse of sand under a blood-red sky. There was a slight breeze, but little sound: certainly the only living things making a noise were the Doctor and his companions.

"Just how large are the Tachocopoti?" asked Adam.

"They're slightly larger than the average human."

"And you're sure this is the right place?"

"Very much so."

"It just seems like a big pile of sand."

"What else?"

"Well now that you mention it, the sand's kind of warm." noted Clara.

"Notice anything odd about that?"

"Hmm. Now that you mention it, the sand seems to be warmer than the surrounding air. But there isn't anything nearby that resembles a volcano."

"Adam and Clara, have you ever heard about plane crashes? In particular about something that survives plane crashes."

"Oh, you mean like a doll that survived unscathed?" asked Adam.

"Yes exactly. Now the Tachocopoti don't have dolls. But they do have a number of toys for their young. The Tachocopoti are also colour-blind, so the toys are not visually impressive. But they do have a wheel, with symbols on it, that helps teaches children to count. It's also linked to another wheel that makes amusing sounds."

Clara noticed something in the sand and pulled out an object that looked exactly like the toy the Doctor had described. "You mean like this."

"Precisely. The Tachocopoti also have something analogous to a wedding ring. It's made of silver and a special compound which means that it can survive all sort of horrific damage. It's about the size of an orange, and it consists of silver spokes radiating from a centre." The Doctor turned to Adam who was holding precisely such an object in his hand.

"Oh my God," and he dropped it.

"This isn't sand we're walking in." Clara realized.

"No. This is the great metropolis of the Tachocopoti. 80 million souls and almost everything they had turned into dust."

"So the city was destroyed by a weapon?" Adam wondered.

"No. A weapon would leave radiation. And radiation can kill me. Indeed it has twice. It would also kill Clara of course."

"Not to mention me."

"Yes, that's not important right now. Someone destroyed this city. And destroyed it out of pure power."

"But why didn't we reach it before that happened?"

"Because you delayed us for a few seconds. And that made all the difference."

Clara then grasped something, and the realization slowly horrified her. "The Cloister bell is still being rung."

"Of course it is. Whoever did this hasn't stopped."

 **Thursday January 14, 1988**

It was not a particularly cold evening in Manhattan as Simon Kostelanetz walked through the slush to meet his friends. He was shorter than average, and his winter coat hid his mildly disconcerting taste in bad sweaters. Despite the many unsatisfactory hair styles of the eighties and the decades to follow, his bowl haircut always looked unimpressive regardless of the time period. Despite being separated by a quarter century and an entire continent, several physicists of Caltech at Pasadena would have been startled by his resemblance to their colleague Howard Wolowitz. Indeed, not only was the physical resemblance stunning, but so was every aspect of their characters. They were both brilliant scientists, both fascinated by science fiction and comic books, both had overbearing mothers, and both tried to hide their awkwardness with women with a bluff confidence that was as unsuccessful as it was unattractive. There was no shortage of other similarities, especially about their many minor vices. Howard's friends would have thought Simon was his very doppelganger. That doppelgangers were supposed to die if they ever saw each other would have disconcerted them, as would many other bits of doppelganger trivia that their friend Dr. Sheldon Cooper would have been very happy to regale them with, with anecdotes as obscure as they were horrifying.

The one salient difference between Kostelanetz and Wolowitz was that whereas the latter was "only" an engineer with "only" a master's from MIT, Kostelanetz had a doctorate in theoretical physics and had just that fall started working at Columbia. As he approached the bar that was his destination he noticed a nun walking towards him in her habit. Ordinarily Kostelanetz would have noticed she was actually fairly attractive and would have stared at her, as was his wont, for too many seconds. Had he gave it more thought he might have thought that it was too cold to be only wearing a habit. But as it happened Kostelanetz had a distinct dislike for nuns, clearly derived from his Jewish background, and quickly looked away from her as he entered the bar.

"Simon! Over here!" Daniel O'Malley waved to Kostelanetz beckoning him to his table, nearest to the actual bar, where three young women were already sitting. The friendship between the very tall hockey player (nearly six and a half feet) for the New York Rangers and the socially awkward physicist was an unexpected one and was originally based on self-interest. Danny needed to pass high school Math and at least two sciences, while Simon needed to survive high school. And although his tutoring of Danny was for Simon an often deeply frustrating experience, in the end it was not only ultimately successful, but actually formed the basis of a genuine friendship. Danny found Simon's enthusiasm for science fiction and comic books genuinely if only moderately infectious. Simon found that Danny was a sincerely nice person, kind, loyal, often sweet and actually considerate and decent to the many women who wanted to sleep with him. Not only that, but Simon learned Danny's secret crush on his other close friend. "Simon, you remember Riley, don't you." (Simon did indeed remember the thin blonde from high school, when she had been considerably fatter.) "She and her two friends came over to help celebrate my brother's big day." Danny pointed to a black woman on his right. "This is Tara Dobbs." And this," pointing to a shorter, more voluptuous blonde, is "Ronnie...Notorotwist? Narutorotor? Naturewhiz?"

"Narutowicz," said the young woman, who showed a tact about the mangling of her surname that many of her fellow Polish-Americans would not have shared. "I think you'd like her Simon. I told her that you teach physics..." Simon eagerly offered his hand to the young woman, "...and she believes the New Age movement has many interesting insights into physics." Simon's enthusiasm for the young woman visibly collapsed by the time he clasped her hand. If the similarity between Simon Kostelanetz and Howard Wolowitz was obvious to anyone who knew the two, only Sheldon Cooper would have thought that Veronica ("Ronnie" to all her friends) Narutowicz and Bernadette Rostenkowski were the same person. And yet a closer inspection would have realized their alarming identity. It wasn't just that both were near-sighted intelligent short blond girls who were the eldest child of their Polish working class families that Republicans flattered by calling middle class. They were alarmingly alike in every respect notwithstanding the two decades or so who separated them right up until the very moment that a nun at their parochial schools told them they were too short and uncharismatic to be cheerleaders. But whereas Bernadette's nun helpfully suggested that she use her aptitude in biology to try to be a scientist, Ronnie's nun just turned around and ignored her. Ronnie responded with an energetic program of self-transformation. She started by dying her hair slightly more blond, replaced her eyeglasses with contacts, and took speech lessons to get the squeak out of her voice. Since she couldn't actually grow taller, she undertook a clever campaign of stilettos and padded shoes on the one hand, and careful entanglements around chairs to increase her height. Tempted to get breast implants, Ronnie realized that they were both risky and unnecessary. A careful use of push-up bras on the one hand, and more subtle uses of cleavages could show her charms without making her appear obvious.

She had eventually gotten on the cheerleading team by realizing that if she wasn't necessarily tall, stunningly beautiful or blatantly sexual, she could still read up on choreography and offer useful assistance on that score. She had no trouble if men underestimated her intelligence, and once she entered university she took a careful tack on how to advance her interests while not appearing to do so. The New Age Movement offered a way into many students interests without actually taking a strong opinion that might be unpopular. It made her look spiritual while distracting attention from the fact she took business courses. It also offered a more open attitude towards sexuality that her original Catholicism. She chose her friends with the same careful calculation. She would be loyal, considerate and kind to women who would never actually compete with something she actually wanted (which at this stage of her life was mostly sex). She chose Tara Tucker Dobbs because she was perceptive, attractive, and knew enough about music, movies and fiction so that Ronnie could learn from her. But her key quality for Ronnie was that while Tara was genuinely tolerant and open-minded, she was much more skeptical of the good intentions of white Americans than most white people in the age of Reagan and Koch wanted to hear. And as such, she was ultimately less attractive to the people Ronnie was interested in sleeping with. Ronnie had chosen Victoria Leilei Grenier, or Riley as she had been called since childhood with the same cunning in mind. She had first met Riley in an English class and asked for her help in reading Chaucer (this was partly because of a hangover from the previous night that Ronnie was more successful in hiding than recovering from). She realized that Riley was kind, thoughtful, capable of considerable generosity and intelligence, but also somewhat nervous and insecure. The fact that she was clearly overweight also allowed Ronnie to be appear more generous to her than was actually the case. Of course, had she realized that Riley was going to lose sixty pounds over the time that she knew her, she probably would have chosen somebody else to be her friend. Somewhat fortunately in the area of sexual competition, Riley had actually a secret crush that Ronnie subtly encouraged to distract her from other men.

Ronnie turned to Simon: "There's so much that's interesting in quantum mechanics and how it deals with Chaos theory and the Gaia hypothesis. I saw this book called _The Dancing Wu-Li Masters_ , and it leads to all kind of interesting ideas." She then started one of her patented combinations of New Age gibberish and whatever subject the man she was talking to was interested in. Simon nodded grimly: he had no scruples about sleeping with stupid women, but aggressively stupid ones made him pause. He turned to Danny "Actually I have some interesting news about this year's comic books."

"Are you sure? I actually found 'The Fall of the Mutants' storyline a bit disappointing."

"I can appreciate that. But this year's X-Men crossover sounds much more promising. It's going to be called 'Inferno.' Not only does it finally deal with the Illyanna storyline, but for the first time the X-Men will meet X-Factor."

"Does DC have anything interesting?"

"Well, they have a large crossover called 'Invasion,' which deals with an alien invasion. But the real attraction is that DC has a new Alan Moore story. It's actually an old Alan Moore story that he didn't get around to completing, called 'V for Vendetta.' It's about a future fascist England and the superhero who challenges it."

"Hey, Moore was the guy who wrote 'Watchman!'"

"He was indeed."

"I loved that book." Turning to the women, Danny enthused about the graphic novel. "You know, it was the first critically acclaimed novel I've read that I didn't have to write a book report for."

"Super." muttered Tara.

"Play nice," nudged Riley.

"How do you know about these things so far in advance Simon?" asked Danny.

"Well, actually scientists like us have access to this computer information network, where you can get access to all kinds of info months before it comes out. You see, it's called the..." But then Danny interrupted him. "It's the man of the hour!" And everyone turned to see Danny's younger brother Ben, who was slightly above average height, and who therefore towered over Simon. Handsome in his own right, though obviously not as strong as his brother, Ben was distinctly more intelligent, and clearly less successful. "Good evening, ladies and gentleman. What drinks can I get you?"

"Yeah, I'll have a gin and tonic," said Simon.

Danny pointed to the women, "Ben, you remember Riley, don't you, and this is Ronnie and Tara..."

"Wow, Riley you look great! You look completely different from the last time I saw you! So you're in law school?"

"Actually, this is my last year. And your haircut is nice. It's kind of like Tom Cruise, if you remotely resembled him. But at least you don't look like a bad heavy metal star."

"Or a good one," added Ronnie, but just this Ben abruptly stiffened as a man twice his age approached him. "You're not wasting my time, O'Malley?"

"No, of course not, Mr. Carter."

"You're sure about that, O'Malley?"

"Quite sure, Mr. Carter."

"Because I've seen you spending more time chatting up the customers than doing your job."

"I'm just taking some orders from this table."

Mr. Carter nodded ungracefully and went elsewhere in the bar.

"Nice guy," muttered Riley.

"Oh, he's more bark than bite."

"Famous last words," Simon commented.

"No, he likes to be tough, but if you do a good job he just nags you. Now you see...oh, hell."

"What's the problem?" asked Tara.

"See that man over there," indicating a gloomy, dark haired man with an aquiline nose, "that's Mr. Calvicanti, my boss."

"I thought Mr. Carter was your boss," wondered Danny.

"Mr. Carter is just my boss for this bar. Mr. Calvicanti owns this bar and half a dozen others. And you do not want to get on his bad side."

Although a businessmen and of Sicilian descent, Eugene Calvicanti was not a member of what was known euphemistically as "the Sicilian business community." But he was the sort of person who took the SBC's claims of government persecution at face value. As he approached the table Ben quickly retreated. "I think I've heard about him." said Riley. "There's actually a whole new market for these kind of upscale bars. I've read that tourism in New York has increased five fold in the last twelve years."

"Well it's nice to know that this city has an industry other than real estate speculation," agreed Tara. "Pity the music in this bar sucks," as the song 'Feelin' Stronger Every Day' came on.

"Really? I actually like this song," admitted Riley.

"Oh come on Riley, it's Chicago."

"I don't know. There's a good half dozen songs of their's that I like. This song for instance, 'Make me Smile,' 'If you Leave me Now.' And, oh yes 'Old Days.' That must be one of my favorite songs."

There was a brief silence. "OK, one day, the United States is going to realize that The Smiths exist, and you are all going to look like idiots."

Several minutes passed. Riley tried to discuss how alarming the future Supreme Court appointments a Bush/Dole White House could make. But Danny knew little about the subject, Simon didn't really care, and Ronnie didn't want to share her opinion that banning abortion outside the Middle Atlantic States was a fair price to pay if the Republicans lowered her taxes. Danny spoke up, "Of course, it's the middle of hockey season, and I'm leaving tomorrow for two weeks on the road. What are you doing at Columbia Simon?"

"Yes, what are you actually doing?" added Ronnie.

"Well teaching students take up a lot of my time. Actually, there's this interesting new project I've been tapped for. But it's so early in the planning stage..." But just then Ben returned when Mr. Calvicanti left the bar. "I know I've had trouble finding steady work since I dropped out of college. But I think being a bartender here suits me. Not only am I good at mixing drinks, I'm also good at all the showmanship that bartenders are supposed to do when mixing drinks."

"And you also have the charm that customers look for in bars like this one," added Danny, "especially female ones."

"What about the part of the job that involves remembering what people ordered, and serving it to them promptly?" asked Simon peevishly.

There was a slightly longer silence. "OK, that part could use a little more work."

 **Tuesday, July 14, 1789 Cloud-Porpoise World**

At the same time that the future of humanity was being decided on the streets of Paris, Clara and Adam found themselves in a strangely disconcerting world. The Tardis had materialized in what appeared to be the elevator of an Art Deco hotel that would not be popular on Earth for another century and a half. On the walls were elegant, vaguely sinister mirrors, with tasteful decoration. Particularly striking were the mother of pearl motifs, done with rare taste and carved with unique precision. But they weren't actually in a hotel. They were in parts of a hotel, that seemed to float in the cloud on separate parts. One had to jump from parts of the "hotel" to another with a certain care. Otherwise, one would fall to the surface a kilometre or two below.

Adam was particularly disturbed by this new world. After barely making one leap, he picked himself up. "How do these things float in the air?"

The Doctor strode, and occasionally leaped, with confidence. "They hang in the air because they're aesthetically right."

"Really?"

"No. Don't be daft. They're like balloons, only more charmingly done." And he strode to his quarry, a dying porpoise.

"Why are we here?" asked Clara. "From what you said back in the TARDIS, whatever is doing this is ravaging whole civilizations. This civilization of floating porpoises is comparatively small."

"There's a very good reason, Clara. Just think a little. Have you noticed the pearl craftwork?"

"Very much so. It's very striking. The porpoises made it themselves?"

"Of course they did. Who else would make it?"

Clara looked at the dying porpoise whom the Doctor was gently consoling. Then she noticed something. "That porpoise's flippers. They're just like porpoises on Earth. They're good for swimming, but they could hardly be used to craft anything."

The Doctor smiled, or as best he could under the circumstances. "Correct. So how did the porpoises make them?"

Clara realized the answer. "They must be telekinetic!"

"And telepathic." The Doctor snapped his fingers and the computer in Adam's head revealed itself. He used his sonic screwdriver to start a computer program. "Whatever destroyed the Tachocopoti didn't use ordinary weapons. It must have used pure mental energy. And the porpoises here have some traces of what attacked them. And with the computer we can help record them."

Adam winced under the headache the computer program caused. "Whatever is doing this is also traveling in time. How is it doing that?"

The Doctor nodded more grimly. "There are a very limited number of time traveling species..."

"Yeah, I don't know of any aside from the Timelords and the Daleks." Clara pointed out.

"And there's also a very limited number of ways one can travel through time. Rather disconcertingly, whoever we're facing isn't using any of those means to do it."

"So how is it traveling?"

"It appears to be opening up wormholes at will and going through them with sheer abandon." The Doctor completed his examination as the porpoise died. Then he started to return to the TARDIS. "I've got an intuition who we're fighting. But I need to confirm it."

 **Friday, August 19, 1988**

It was about quarter to three in the afternoon, when Tara entered the bar. "Where the hell is everybody? You'd think at least the O'Malleys would be here."

Ronnie noticed Tara from the table she was sitting at. "I think Danny is with Simon at the University. I don't know here Ben is. **"**

Tara looked warily around the bar. "There's something not right..."

"Yes. Have you been having that feeling all day?"

Ordinarily Tara cared little for any of Ronnie's talk about feelings, or any of her other New Age chatter. But today, "Now that you mention it..." Tara looked to the television overhead which was on CNN. "...the Senator added that he was sure that Senator Quayle would be a remarkable addition to the GOP ticket. In Breaking News, we've just had a report that the Comtesse Di Contarini, a leading member of the International Jet Set, has been found drowned just off Battery Park. We have not confirmed this report, but sources indicate..."

 **Tuesday, February 9, 1988**

When Kostelanetz had gotten a cell phone for Purim almost a year ago, with his mother agreeing to pay all the bills involved with it herself, he couldn't believe his luck. Of course, within a few weeks he realized that luck was very bad, because now his mother could call him at any moment of the day. Now he had to find an excuse for why he didn't answer her every call, something which considerably taxed his ingenuity. This evening as he walked towards the bar he was only moderately annoyed. "Mom, of course I can't tell you all about it. Which part of 'Top Secret,' do you fail to understand?" He winced under a barrage of passive-aggressive tendentiousness, delivered in his mother's hoarse, coarse voice. "Look, Mom, if this works, I could be as big as Watson and Crick." Kostelanetz winced again when he remembered that his mother didn't know or had deliberately forgotten the discoverers of the DNA double helix. "Look, I don't care that Mrs. Bierdermeier's son is a doctor, or that he's getting married in May. Yes, I can't tell you more, but I promise you that once I can you'll have good reason to be proud of me. Look Mom, I've got to go..." He turned off his phone and started the last two blocks to the bar.

He wasn't aware that he was at that moment under electronic surveillance. Watching him from two blocks up were a couple with the best technological advances the past 14 years had over "The Conversation," while the couple themselves looked considerably more attractive than Gene Hackman and John Cazale. "Why are we watching this schmuck argue with his mother? Like that never happens in New York." wondered the mildly seductive female half.

An answer abruptly appeared on a walkie talkie. "Yours is not to reason why. Yours is but to do and die." The voice was vaguely English, and commanding enough to halt any dissension and make the two double down and concentrate on listening to Kostelanetz as he entered the bar. Simon walked over to Ben behind his bar. "So Danny's gone for another couple of weeks? Damn. I thought he left on Thursday." He ordered a gin and tonic, and was surprised to find it pleasantly different. Ben smiled at him, and Simon felt a little guilty that the extra effort was probably wasted on someone like him. He noticed the three girls at a nearby table and started to make a smile that threatened to turn into an obnoxious leer before seeing his reflection in a mirror made him check it. He strode over to the table.

The eavesdroppers carefully listened to the chatter between the quartet, while Ben dropped by occasionally, ostensibly to offer drinks. They edited excerpts of Ronnie talking about the New Age, Simon subtly disagreeing with some quackish medical cares, and with Riley announcing she had to leave since she had classes tomorrow. "Is this twit trying to hit on one of these girls?" the male eavesdropper wondered. The voice spoke up again. "I will be the judge of how relevant this conversation is. Keep to your work." More than a hour had passed, and Simon had not noticed that Ben was finishing his shift now, and not a couple of hours later when the bar closed. He had just mentioned Martin Gardiner in response to something (deliberately) vacuous that Ronnie had said when Tara spoke up. "I've heard of 'Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science,' but I've never taken the time to read it."

"Oh, I think I can help you. I have a copy of it back at my apartment."

"Well you can bring it over the next time we meet."

"Actually my apartment's only a few blocks away. We could go over now and I could give it you."

Tara was immediately skeptical. But after briefly considering it she agreed to come along. They soon reached his place. "Would you like a drink, Tara?"

"Not really. If I did I wouldn't have left the bar."

"Well, I think I'll get one for myself." Tara waited tactfully by the door while Simon made himself a soda. He then went to the bookcase, but instead of retrieving the book, turned on his CD player. "You Shook me all Night Long," loudly filled the room. To Tara's considerable surprise, Simon swaggered, strutted and postured in a manifestly unsuccessful attempt to dance sexily. Tara stared at him for more than a full minute. Then she began to laugh. This initially did not affect Simon's confidence. He had been told that in situations like this he should just brave through the derision. So it took another forty-five seconds for him to realize that this simply wasn't going to work. He turned off the CD player, put down his drink, and approached Tara.

"The book you promised me?"

"Oh right." And Simon quickly returned to the bookcase, obtained the book and quickly raced back. "I'm sorry. That was crass of me."

"Quite."

"I hope this doesn't ruin our friendship."

"I think we have to know each other a bit more before we can say we are actually friends. But I accept your apology."

She turned to go and then paused. "Just one thing. Most white men, actually most men period prefer blondes. So why did you try to pick up me?"

"Did I do something wrong?"

"Not so much wrong as unusual."

"No deep reason. There is a price men are willing to pay for sex. And listening to two hours of New Age garbage beforehand is one I'm not willing to pay."

"I have two blonde friends."

"Oh, Riley was never an option."

"Why not?"

"Well it's obvious. She's Danny's girl."

"That's what he thinks," Tara said to herself as she walked to the elevator.

 **September 11, 695423996 Manussa 4**

The Doctor and his two companions walked the surface of the burning planet in space suits, since the surface temperature was a couple of hundred degrees higher than it had been when it had been the home of the Sumaran empire hundreds of millions years ago. All life had long ago died or evacuated, but there were still ruins, or more accurately the vestiges of ruins. In the rubble, the Doctor sifted through the hot sand, and found a small piece of crystal. He snapped his fingers, and the computer in Adam's head opened. As a program ran, the Doctor used his sonic screwdriver on the crystal. 

"That's a rather large sun in the sky." Adam noted warily.

"Of course it is. It's going to explode in thirty five minutes."

"What?"

"Yes, give or take half an hour. So don't wander off."

"What?!"

"That's cutting it fairly close Doctor." rued Clara.

"Yes. It's actually a bit encouraging, since it means the entity is afraid of being caught in a supernova."

"That's not much of a limitation."

"No, it clearly isn't. And the entity is becoming more powerful the more it rampages through the universe." The screwdriver made a silly "beep-beep" noise as it completed its scan. "At least we now know who it is." He started running back to the TARDIS, followed by the others. "It's incredible. It's a very old enemy, but far more powerful than when I last encountered it. We are about to face..."

 **Sunday, March 2, 1988**

"...the Mara!" shouted Ronnie.

"The what?" asked Tara. She, Ronnie and Riley were all spending the evening in Riley's rather small apartment. Riley has invited them to watch "12 Angry Men" on television, and Tara's first thought was this a ruse on Ronnie's part to change the subject. "The Mara: it is an expression of our fears, our doubts, our inabilities to face our weaknesses. It lurks inside of us, wanting to hurt our friends, questioning their good faith, doubting their love. It slowly accumulates, like soot on a building. But it can be cleaned through special healing exercises. I sense its presence among us. Something in the atmosphere shows it exists. It has to be dealt with."

"And how would we do that?" wondered Riley.

"We need candles. And we need to light incense." Ronnie took out both from her purse, and enclosed the three of them on the floor within four candles, while lighting a bier of incense at a fifth point, creating a pentagon. Riley and Tara were a bit skeptical, but there was something in Ronnie's tone that made them take her seriously. "Besides she did treat us to dinner last week," Riley whispered to Tara. Ronnie started a chant, the sort of chant that Tara was surprised to find out eight months ago was actually in Tibetan. "We will all try to clear our thoughts. For a few minutes we will try to not think at all. Then one of us will speak. Then after another has purged her thoughts, she will speak, and then the last one."

"How long will this take?" queried Riley.

"It shouldn't take more than twenty minutes." (The movie started on TV in thirty-five.) "Close your eyes. And try not to think." There was a silence that, not surprisingly, Ronnie was the first to break. "There are waters rushing down..." There was a pause. "I see the sun shining in a foreign sky. Very foreign. There are tints of green." Another pause. "Something slips and slides from my hands. A melody whispers in my ear. I see a band of gold. There is something caressing me." Yet another pause. "I see a clock, no, a sundial. It's about to burst, full of pomegranates." There was another silence, a shorter one this time, before Ronnie said "Your turn."

it wasn't clear who this was directed to. At the moment Tara was trying not to think, and thinking that she was clearly an idiot for going along with this. But then an image appeared to her. "The Comtesse de Contarini?"

"Why are you thinking of her?"

"I don't know. I mean it's the eighties, and the world is full of very rich and very presumptuous people who force themselves on the rest of us. But the Comtesse is different. I mean not different in the way that she's always in style magazines and getting mentioned in the New York media. But there's something special about her."

"But she's not even a countess." Riley objected. "I mean she is a countess because she married an Italian count. But she's neither Italian nor an aristocrat. Before she met the Count she was a Playboy centerfold from flyover country."

"I know that. But there's something about her. She's like Thatcher. I mean I hate Thatcher and I hate everything she stands for. But I respect her in a way I don't respect Reagan. And I feel the same way about the Comtesse. I mean on the face of it she's just a blonde bimbo who graduated to Eurotrash. But there's something about her eyes. They're very dark. And there's something in them. Ouroboros?" Tara's body twitched suddenly. "I'm sorry, I've lost it."

Now it was Riley's turn. "There's a spiral. No, something is spiraling. Somewhere in the dark. No, not in the dark. Not there at all. But in the opposite. I can't quite grasp it."

"You need to focus," Ronnie whispered.

"Something as sweet as a kiss. Something as happy as a laugh. That's not the spiral, but there's a connection? I don't understand."

"Try to concentrate on your senses."

"There's something I need more than anything else in the world. Something that makes me laugh. There's a trap, but it's not for me..."

"Try a specific sense. Like smell." 

"I smell...cotton candy? Some really mediocre popcorn, but I'm so happy. I'm smelling the incense. There's smoke along with it, there's more of it. Omigod something's burning!"

And indeed something was. Entirely the fault of Ronnie's carelessness, there was now a small fire burning near the incense burner. Riley immediately got up and tried to extinguish it, ultimately succeeding with Tara's help. "I think this was an interesting exercise." summarized Ronnie. "It's unfortunate we didn't quite complete it. We should try it again some time.

Riley fumed at Ronnie. "You. Set. My Apartment. ON FIRE!"

 **December 24, 5472 Metebellis Three**

The Doctor and his companions were below the surface, in the caves where the sentient spiders lived. Or more accurately, _had_ lived. One large spider slowly staggered to the Doctor. "You may not have realized this, but some of us survived of our last encounter with you."

"Although I died the last time I was here, I'm glad to hear of it."

"Then the Mara arrived, and now we're all dying."

"I know. I need you to give me the crystal that I brought here the time I was here before."

"Don't you already have a crystal from this planet?"

"It doesn't contain the Mara's psychic signature. I know using your powers while on death's door will be unpleasant. But I need you to teleport the crystal here. I can't risk dying from radiation poisoning looking for it myself."

The spider and a couple of her sickly sisters formed a circle and started a trance. Adam shuddered. "They don't look like a very pleasant species."

"They're vindictive, spiteful and their late leader suffered from megalomania. So they're not that different from humans."

"Can you tell us more about the Mara?" asked Clara.

"It's a strange entity of pure hatred, anger and greed. It manipulates and feeds in the dark places of the soul. It's a psychic entity, but when it manifests itself it appears in the form of a great serpent. I fought it twice before, but its powers were much more limited. It had trouble controlling a few dozen people, now it can kill tens of millions in moments. I thought I had destroyed it, but I apparently sent it to a psychic wasteland, and somehow it has become free." A blue gem of extraordinary beauty materialized before the Doctor's feet. "You won't regret this," he said to the Spider, but she had already died. He picked up the gem and turned towards the TARDIS.

"So we're going to use this crystal against the Mara?" pondered Clara.

"We're going to need a lot of help first."

 **Friday, May 13, 1988**

Bonnie O'Malley was in an exceptionally bad mood. Tall, blonde, surprisingly, indeed disconcertingly, young for Danny's mother, she had an alarmingly large number of things to do before tomorrow, and had for several days. Arguably she handled pressure well, since she was actually getting these things done and on time. That she responded to it by being very angry was something the rest of her family had learned to accept and appreciate. "I knew this would happen! I've known this for years. I've known this was exactly the sort of stupid thing Ben O'Malley would do! I've told him for years and years not to do this, and this is exactly what he ends up doing! My son is an idiot! My son is a moron! And now I have to prepare the song list! 'Old Days," indeed. God, Riley has awful taste."

Just then Ben poked his head in. "Just wanted to thank you for everything you're doing Mom!"

With typical impulsiveness, Bonnie picked up an ashtray and hurled it at her son. Fortunately, she missed. "Thanks also for throwing wide." and he quickly ducked out.

"My son is going to be the death of me, and the rest of the family! This is a disaster just waiting to happen!" Just then the telephone rang. "Whoever the hell this is, I have absolutely no time for you. Unless you're the florists."

"I understand," said the voice calmly, "children apparently can be such a handful."

"You have no idea! I love my son, but the past two months I just want to throw him off the Brooklyn bridge every single day!"

"Yes. And I've been told that many children don't really appreciate their mothers."

"Oh, that is so right. Not a word of gratitude, not a word of thanks! It's so frustrating!"

"I sympathize completely. Why don't you relax for a moment and tell me all about it?"

 **January 6, 2738, High Chamber of the Draconian Empire**

The Doctor strode with confidence into the elaborate rooms that housed what amounted to the general staff of the Draconian empire. Clara and Adam followed behind. Adam was distinctly more nervous, since the Draconian bodyguards and high ranking officers were clearly taller than ordinary human men. While the Doctor was treated with respect, they showed no such courtesy to the species they had fought in a violent war several decades earlier. Dressed in their elaborate robes, featuring designs that were centuries old, the reptilian species spoke with a distinct hiss with every sentence. The Doctor approached an empty chair, representing the absent emperor. On the chair's right was the leading solider of the entire empire.

"I approach you, High Paladin of the empire, servant of the Imperial Pentagon."

"Ah Doctor, you sssayy you can tell usss how to ssstop the Mara?"

"You told me it has been ravaging your Empire?"

"Our Empire, asss well asss thossse of the humansss. We alssso believe that it hass attacked other worldsss in the galaxy."

The High Paladin made a signal and a short mole like creature entered, about half the size of a Draconian. According to immemorial tradition Draconian officers were not supposed to handle ink, and a number of bureaucratic tasks were officially carried out by a number of allied species. The "Mole" secretary handed the Doctor some papers, which he quickly perused while Clara looked over his shoulder. She winced as she realized what the contents said. "According to these records, the Mara has destroyed billions of people."

"Oh yes, it becomes more powerful the longer it grows unchecked."

"How powerful can it become?"

"Well the universe is an extremely large place, and eternity is an extremely long time. However, geometrical progression tends to cut it down to size rather quickly." Looking more closely at the worlds being ravaged, he added, "In fact, the destruction is confusing the whole time stream."

"And how does that help us?" The Doctor did not reply. But he did smile very briefly, as he returned the papers. "But you're planning an armada to confront the Mara."

"Yesss. We will be assssisssted by the humansss. We, and othersss, plans to confront them in three daysss time at the Cavallax sssyssstem."

Adam was confused. "The Mara travels in time and can pop in and out of any place. Why do you expect it to be there?"

"We have been usssing a number of ssspeciesss with psssychic abilitiesss. I think, Doctor, you have heard of at leassst one of them, the Sssissterhood of Karn, but there are othersss. We have been ussssing them to concentrate and lure the Mara to Cavallax. There isss a black hole nearby, while we have ssspecial weaponsss that we feel may ssssavage the Mara."

The Doctor nodded. "The idea works in principle. Psychic energy isn't that radically different from other energy. It should therefore be capable of being blocked, being jammed or being countered."

"But you have ssssomething sssspecial, sssomething of dissstinct value?"

"I have a special psychic tool. I will join you in battle at Cavallax."

"And how ussseful will it be?"

The Doctor hesitated ever so slightly. "I promise you hope."

 **Friday, June 10, 1988**

Simon and all his friends were at the bar. He was sitting at a table with Danny and Ronnie, and was thinking of a way to cheer up Danny. The playoffs had been going on for what seemed an eternity, but not for the Rangers. They couldn't even claim to be humiliated by the Oilers as that team won their fourth Stanley Cup in five years. There were other problems of course, and Simon was pondering how to raise the issue while absently wondering why Ronnie hadn't bothered him with fraudulent "alternative medicines." But just this his cell phone rang. "Yes? Hello? Oh Pr. Hawking! It must be incredibly late in Cambridge." There was some unpleasant feedback on his phone. "I'm having trouble hearing your sir. I'm going to put you on speaker phone." Few if any cellular phones had that feature in 1988. But although Simon had not been an engineer, he had minored it in university, and had tinkered with his cell phone for that to work. He motioned Danny and Ronnie to be quiet.

"I wanted to talk to you about the engineering synchronization aspect." said Hawking in the voice that had not quite become internationally famous.

"Is this from the project you've been working on?" asked Danny.

"Yes, of course," as Simon shushed Danny.

"The synchronization aspect has not worked quite as we hoped."

"Oh no. What's gone wrong?"

"What's gone wrong...is that it is working remarkably better than we expected. In fact it is working better than we had any hope to expect."

"What?!"

"In fact it is working so well, we have moved the grand planning meeting to the first thing Monday."

"Omigod, that's incredible!"

"I thought you should be the first to know." And he hung up.

Simon was ecstatic. The other two looked at him. "Is it just me, or did that person have a very strange voice?" wondered Danny.

"That's not his voice. It's a computer program that allows him to talk."

"Oh." Danny was silent. "Ummm, OK."

"You still haven't told us what this project's about." Ronnie noted.

"Yeah. And I still can't tell you. But I promise you will know well before I win my first Nobel prize."

The trio's attention was attracted by applause elsewhere in the bar. Mr. Carter was drawing his attention to Ben. "Let me introduce you to the man who both the Post and the News makes the best martinis in New York City, not to mention the best Manhattans in Manhattan: Ben O'Malley!" The room applauded, with Riley's clapping at another table blocked by a host of law books. Carter noticed that Mr. Calvicanti had entered the bar. "Mr. Calvicanti, have you heard the good news?"

"Indeed I have. Good job Carter." Calvicanti then looked at Ben. "And I've heard so much about you Mr. O'Malley."

"All good, I hope."

"Not really, no."

Meanwhile Tara had just returned from the washroom and was about to rejoin Riley. She noticed a news report about the Comtesse de Contarini and the latest Milan fashions when an employee told her there was a phone call for her. "Hello?"

"You are not going to hang up this phone."

"Who is this?"

"You know perfectly well who this is. It's a complete stranger whom you've never met before. But you are not going to hang up this phone."

"Is this some kind of obscene call?"

"Ms. Dobbs, you know perfectly well that this isn't. I know you are a very strong and intelligent woman, because if you weren't you would have been crushed well before now."

"What's this about?"

"It's not about you. It's never going to be about you, because despite being very strong and intelligent you are not destined to be the hero of your own life. It's about your friends. It's about what you can tell me about them Tara Tucker Dobbs, the token of their good faith. You are going to tell me everything I need to know about them."

 **January 9, 2738 Cavallax System**

The Doctor, Clara and Adam were in the TARDIS and could see outside the two vast and very different armadas designed to stop the Mara. Adam was quite alarmed, having never seen such an enormous space fleet. Clara was hardly confident about them either. To the right of the main TARDIS motor the blue crystal from Metebellis Three was plugged in to an elaborate electrical device, as well an elaborate contraption that one placed on one's head. It was also connected to one of the TARDIS's chronometers.

"That cloister bell does not become more attractive with time." worried Adam.

"Nor does your complaining about it." added the Doctor.

The largest of the Draconian ships held the High Paladin, who communicated to the TARDIS. "We are expecting assssissstance from another ssspecies. Given your relationnsss with that ssspecies, we were careful not to tell them of your aid."

A warship materialized in the distance. So did another one, and then another, and soon that section of space was filled with them. "Daleks," Clara realized.

"Yes," noted the Doctor. "The Time War distinctly limits the ability for either them or me to encounter the pasts of each other. Actually it makes it impossible."

"Not the people we really want to see right this moment." Adam fretted.

"Don't worry. They're not the enemy right now. And even if they were, I've faced Dalek armadas before."

Clara paced the length of the TARDIS console room. A voice came up from the main Human spaceship. "We're noticing a disturbance, like a wormhole forming."

"Then that would be the Mara. I guess it's showtime then," said Adam. The Doctor snapped his fingers, making the computer in Adam's head appear. "You are going to receive a lot of information via your computer. It'll be painful, but you can make your way through it. Clara I'll need you to dematerialize the TARDIS on an instant's notice." The Doctor put on the contraption that linked him to the crystal, and started to concentrate.

Outside a brief light appeared and then vanished. "The Mara hasss arrived." The Draconians, Humans and Daleks activated their special psychic weapons. In the vacuum of space they made no sound, of course. There was a slow, steady unpleasant hum as the crystal glowed. One of the TARDIS screens turned on automatically. Information from Adam's computer was downloading on to it, while Adam winced from the pain. "The chronometer!" yelled Clara as that too turned on. Random numbers started appearing in no logical sequence. For what seemed like minutes, but was less than thirty seconds, screens flashed, crystals hummed, and nothing else happened. "We have not received no psssychic contact from the Mara. Sssso far our weaponsss are working asss well as we can expect. Doctor, will thisss work?"

"I offered you hope high Paladin. And I have every reason to believe that if this works, not a single Draconian will die today."

Clara tapped her fingers nervously. Five seconds passed, and nothing new happened. Ten seconds passed, and there was no sudden change. Fifteen seconds passed and things were still the same. Twenty seconds passed, and everything seemed to be under control. And then at twenty-three seconds, a human ship exploded. The noise, briefly loud than abruptly silent, was somehow transferred directly to the TARDIS. Then a Draconian ship exploded, then a Dalek one. And then the image of the Mara as a giant serpent appeared in the TARDIS console room itself.

 **Wednesday, February 10, 1988**

It was a busy day for Riley at her law school. She had just finished a class, and that was a lot of reading for her to do. There were assignments that required her attention. There was volunteering and law student activities that she should have been concerned about. And the day was somewhat chillier than one expected for a New York February. Yet as she left the building where her class had been, all she could see was the sunny sky, and all she could feel was the growing enthusiasm in her heart. As she walked away, she started running, and it took some effort to carry her purse and the books she had brought, instead of just tossing them aside.She ran faster and faster, and when she stopped at a street corner waiting for the light to change, she started to laugh out of sheer joy. She didn't see the relatively young nun approach her and smile at her.

"Don't do it. He'll only break your heart."

Riley was startled, and stumbled slightly as she turned to face the nun, who smiled beatifically. Then the light changed and Riley managed to regain her footing. She started to move across the street, and looking back at the nun started to break into a run. She ran faster and faster, and in a moment or two it almost appeared that nothing had happened to her at all.

 **January 9, 2738 Cavallax System**

The shock of the Mara's appearance forced all three to the floor of the TARDIS. Adam took it particularly badly and started fruitlessly twittering out warnings to his friends and family more than seven centuries in the past. "Give me that, you idiot," the Doctor said as he grabbed the device. "You're panicking. It's absolutely vital not to panic."

Clara got up from the floor to see warships of all kinds explode as they were destroyed by the Mara. The High Paladin shouted to the TARDIS "Our ssspecial sssyssstems are failing! We have no defenssses against the Mara. Doctor, you have to help ussss!"

But just then the crystal from Metebellis 3 glowed very brightly, then exploded. The three ducked down not to be hit by the shards. Most of the crystal was still there linked to the device, but it was now a hunk of coal which then turned to ash. The Doctor aimed his sonic screwdriver at Adam, and then aimed it half a dozen places in the Control room. "Doctor!" Clara shouted. Outside the three armadas were exploding one ship at a time in an accelerating crescendo. "Doctor!' screamed the High Paladinfrom his own warship, the largest of the Draconian armada. Then it too exploded. "Clara, demateralize!" The TARDIS did so as the last of the ships were all destroyed by the Mara.

There was a silence in the TARDIS. Then a soft voice was heard on the intercom. The three struggled to listen to it before Adam recognized it. "Is someone singing the alphabet?"

"I need to concentrate. The TARDIS' language circuits are complicating matters." He closed his eyes and concentrated as the voice sang the alphabet. Then the cloister bell started chiming in again. The three hadn't noticed it stopping when the Mara had materialized. "I understand what this is. Before the Daleks were formed, there were Kaleds, there were Thals, and there were mutants of Kaleds and Thals. But they were all sentient and they all remembered the songs that they used to remember their common alphabet."

"We should rescue it!" demanded Clara.

"No, we can't. We can't go back to the Cavallax system because the Mara would devote its full attention to us. Even if we could do that, we're dealing with a Dalek in space, whose shield has been shattered and is exposed to the cold and the vacuum.It's been so exposed that all the Dalek programming has been damaged and it's returning to its fundamental pre-Dalek views. It's that damaged." The alphabet song stopped. "And now it's gone." He then turned to the chronometer. "Yes! It worked! It's working perfectly!"

"What's working perfectly?" asked Adam.

"The whole point of what we were doing, obviously."

"Doctor," asked an alarmed Clara, "you promised the armadas hope."

"Yes. Yes I did."

"You also promised the High Paladin that not a single Draconian would die today."

The Doctor paused as he remembered what he said a few minutes previously. "Yes, you're right. That's exactly what I did."

"But they're all dead now."

"Umm. For the moment."

"Doctor..." and now Clara was very angry, "did you just trick hundreds of thousands of soldiers, maybe millions..."

"Oh, definitely millions."

"...to sacrifice themselves so that we could observe the Mara at absolutely no risk at ourselves?"

The Doctor turned to face Clara and Adam directly. "No. You heard what the High Paladin said. The Draconians, the humans, the Daleks, their allies, all of them would have appeared here to try to stop the Mara. And they would have failed completely."

"But you still gave them false hope!"

"No, I gave them real hope. Look at that screen right in front of you." The two humans stared at it uncomprehendingly. "Doctor, it's complete gibberish."

"Oh, right. Right now the Mara is extraordinarily powerful. Far too powerful for me to stop on my own. After all it just destroyed three space armadas. But I suspected something from the way it's been hopping in and out of time with no care for the logic of the time stream. And now I've confirmed it. It's _temporarily vulnerable_!"

"What?"

"I can't defeat the Mara by confronting it now or in its future. But I can go to its past and stop it."

"I thought you couldn't go back in time to do that?" Adam pointed out.

"No, I can't go back in _my_ time stream. There's nothing that prevents me from going back in _its_ time stream. In a few moments that chronometer is going to reveal the time and place where the Mara first appeared after I pushed it back into the void on the Manussan homeworld."

 **Monday, June 13, 1988**

It was a boardroom in the physics department at Columbia university. Half a dozen people were seated around a table waiting for the teleconference to begin. Among them was Kostelanetz, who could barely contain his excitement at being included at the historic moment. A signal appeared on the teleconference system before them. "Dr. Simon Kostelanetz, New York."

"Dr. Steerforth Coogan, Los Angeles" said a supercilious voice with a strong Texan accent.

"Pr. Setsuko Mizoguchi, Tokyo," added a female voice.

"Dr. Rajesh Mukherjee, New Delhi," added a slightly youthful voice.

"Pr. Boris Paradjanov, Leningrad"

"Pr. Nyere Naipaul, Dar Es Salaam."

"Dr. Maria Caetano, Rio de Janiero."

"Pr. Stephen Hawking, Cambridge. We all know that time is not an absolute. We know that it contorts the closer one get to the speed of light. For the moment, this has been of little practical use. The distortions only affect our ability to move into the future, they only work one way, and we do not have the technical capacity to approach more than a miniscule fraction of the speed of light..."

 **The TARDIS**

"So the chronometer will give us an exact time and place?" Clara asked.

"Not an _exact_ time and place. There's a sort of Heisenberg uncertainty principle involved. But it will give us a date and a place. Once we have those, we can go there and prevent the Mara from ever reappearing." The Chronometer digits started settling down, and a date appeared-Friday, August 19, 1988.

"A Friday. Fridays are interesting. A bit overrated, Wednesdays have never quite got their due, but interesting nevertheless." The Doctor then watched the place slowly reveal itself.

"It's on Earth." noted Adam.

"What happened in August 1988 that could be so important? If it happened a year later one could imagine it had something to do with the end of the cold war." Clara pondered the question in her mind. "Wait! Wasn't there a coup in Burma that time?"

"It's not relevant," interjected the Doctor, since the Chronometer made clear that the event took place in the United States. The Doctor waited for the rest of the information to reveal itself-and then his face fell. "No! It can't be there! Why does it have to be there!?" He gasped in shock as the chronometer revealed the place the Mara had arisen was Manhattan, New York City.

 **Monday, June 10, 1988.**

Hawking continued, "Aside from the relativist exception, it is clear that time travel to the past is an impossibility on multiple grounds. And for the next couple of months the rest of the world must believe that. But after our experiment in mid-August takes place, we will make traveling back to the high Renaissance no more difficult than traveling to Antarctica-a mere matter of expense. Consider ladies and gentlemen the implications of what we are about to do."

 **Friday, August 5, 1988**

"Mr. Calvicanti? Mr. Calvicanti?" Carter had been summoned to his boss' headquarters in Soho. He was surprised to find the people he expected to be here absent, and a host of movers shuffling the furniture around.

"Mr. Calvicanti no longer works here." said a voice. Carter turned and saw a man approach him. The voice had an English accent, with an undertone that suggested it was old even when its bearer was young. The man was elegantly attired in a fine suit. He was thin with penetrating eyes. Had Carter been more attentive he would have wondered why the man wasn't sweating like everybody else on this humid summer day.

"What do you mean he doesn't work here?"

"What's the phrase you...Americans like? Of yes, I made him an offer he could not refuse. He is no longer your superior. I am."

Carter, of course, did not recognize the voice from the person spying on Simon Kostelanetz, or the man who had telephoned Bonnie O'Malley or Tara Dobbs. His first thought was that the voice was smug and complacent. Except that the man had every reason to be confident about what he was doing. Carter looked at his new employer nervously, and responded with a slight show of bravado. "Nobody told me about this."

"I'm telling you now."

"And who am I speaking to?"

"Smith. John Smith," said Vislor Turlough.


	2. The Revenge for Love

**The Revenge For Love**

 _(Special Bonus: the preview for this episode! The Doctor "We have to go to the Well of Souls." Simon to Ronnie, "You're afraid of something, but of what?" Turlough and the Comtesse de Contarini, "The Mara is rising! The Mara is rising!" The Mara to the Doctor: "After me comes someone mightier than I, whose sandals I am not fit to untie." Pictures of Clara, Simon, Adam, Ben, Ronnie, Riley, Danny and Tara as the Mara declares "And you will lose absolutely everything." Turlough in a chipper mood: "It's a funny story actually.")_

 **Thursday, February 25, 1988**

Riley was in her bathrobe when the telephone rang. It was Danny on the line. "Hi Riley! Did you see me at the game last night?"

"Umm, no. I'm sorry I didn't."

"Really? I thought this was spring break at your law school."

"Well it's actually reading week. And the thing about law school is that you do have to read to pass. Quite a lot actually. And even more to actually get good marks. So I've actually been incredibly busy."

"That's a shame. Well, we should try to meet up some time soon."

"Yes. Yes we should." She paused. "But we can't do it right now. As it happens I'm busy tonight. Just as I was busy last night."

"Damn. I'm sorry, but I have to go on the road soon."

"But I promise I'll see you sometime in the next few days."

"How about Friday evening?"

"Yes! Yes that would be great!" And she sighed with relief when Danny hung up. Just then Ben emerged from the bathroom in only his pants. "Hey, was that Danny?"

 **The TARDIS**

The cloister bell was still tolling. "I don't understand why we can't go to Manhattan." said Adam. "I didn't realize that 'Don't Worry, Be Happy' was that deadly."

"That's _not_ funny Adam!" snapped the Doctor.

"Look," explained Clara. "the last time the Doctor was in Manhattan he and his companions were attacked by weeping angels."

"Weeping angels?"

"Beings who can throw you decades into the past with a single touch. It's a complex story, but the Doctor's companions-who were my immediate predecessors as companions-were trapped there and the Doctor can't arrive there."

"I can't believe that's a coincidence." declared the Doctor.

"I still don't understand the problem." said Adam.

"Allow me to demonstrate this." the Doctor elucidated. He took out a softball from one of his pockets. "Imagine that this ball is the TARDIS and the TARDIS central motor is New York City." He tossed the ball at the motor, where it bounced off and hit Adam in the arm.

"Ow! But why don't we just land in New Jersey and then go into New York City?"

"The temporal anomalies that prevent the TARDIS from appearing there also affect us because we've been traveling in the TARDIS."

"So what would happen?"

"I don't know. I haven't tried it! We could just be physically unable to enter Manhattan. We might finds ourselves arbitrarily flung decades forwards or backwards. We might find ourselves trapped in a single instant of New York City history for all eternity. What I strongly suspect will happen is that we don't prevent the Mara from ravaging the universe!"

"You said this _might_ happen," Clara realized. "Isn't that a risk worth running?"

The Doctor nodded grimly, and set the TARDIS in motion. The TARDIS hummed pleasantly... and then abruptly jerked to a halt. "All right, the Russian Roulette gambit of wandering into New York City has been permanently put on hold."

"What's happening Doctor?"

"The Mara doesn't have a firm grasp on how time travel works. But when it manifested itself briefly in the TARDIS, it must have put some restrictions on what the TARDIS can do."

"So we're stuck here?" gasped Adam.

"For the time being we can't go back to earth. But I think if I can bypass some systems we can move more and less normally." He quickly pressed a few buttons, and the Time Motor began to move again normally. Then, very abruptly, the gravity shifted 180 degrees, with the Doctor and Clara hanging on to the central control while Adam fell down on to what had been the TARDIS ceiling.

"Owww."

 **Tuesday July 19, 1988**

The Comtesse de Contarini smiled as she approached her new guest. Seven years ago she had been a bored undergraduate at the University of Nebraska who listened skeptically to an acquaintance say she should attend a photo shoot _Playboy_ was having for midwestern undergraduates. Six years ago she realized that while being a former centerfold wouldn't get her an acting career, she could still get something from the condescending contemptuous director by blackmailing him. Five years ago she realized that she could triple her savings by using the tricks of insider trading that her financier "boyfriend" incorrectly assumed she was too stupid to understand. Four years ago she made the key decision in her life when by considerable skill and complete lack of scruple she managed to become the beneficiary of the considerable legacy of the late Count Scarlioni. Three years ago she had married the Comte de Contarini, one of the richest and most distinguished of Italian aristocrats who was pleasantly surprised by how intelligent and literate his vivacious new bride was. The Comte's own tastes were ultimately homosexual and he accommodated his new wife's apparently reasonable requests as a penance for his role in driving his first wife to suicide. Two years ago she had doubled her husband's already very impressive fortune and was the toast of Hollywood. Lawrence Kasdan and William Hurt were grateful for her advice, while Michael Eisner was startled by her business acumen. One year ago she met the most powerful conservative leaders from nine European Community countries. Meanwhile the director who had ended her acting career was recovering from drug addiction in a clinic that the Comtesse had made quite sure would never actually cure him. Today, she was a month away from her greatest triumph, a moment she awaited with cool confidence. The Comtesse used her morose and guilty stepdaughter as a toy to demonstrate her maternal affections. She no longer needed to emphasize the blonde in her hair. Her physical appearance was as striking as ever, but now it was also a tribute to her subtlety and good taste. No one alluded to her less tasteful past, and no commented about her sexuality (largely because, aside from her husband, those who had been in a position to know were dead). It was, therefore, a bit disconcerting that her polite new guest, while polite, did not show the signs of respect, awe and desire that her male guests invariably did.

"John Smith, my lady," introduced her butler.

"Really, Mr. Turlough, I would have thought we were above aliases."

"My apologies," Turlough said, since it was very clearly him. "If I had known you were aware of my real name, I would not have resorted to the pretense."

"My servants have offered you some refreshments?"

"They were quite insistent on the champagne. It's extraordinarily good-probably."

"Perhaps we could have some privacy?" And the Comtesse showed Turlough to a private room. In there a few Eurotrash associates kept a respectful distance while the Comtesse and Turlough sat on a fashionable divan that would become abruptly less fashionable a decade later, only to become dramatically more popular a decade after that. "If you could show me some credentials?"

"Of course," and Turlough revealed a square approximately the size of a pocket calculator. On the square was a spiral.

"Thank you," said the Comtesse. "Let me be direct. The Doctor is a problem, and you apparently have the solution." Turlough nodded. "What kind of people does the Doctor visit in his travels on earth?"

"For a start geniuses. Scientific mostly, but occasionally artistic."

"What about leaders?"

"The Doctor believes that individuals can make a difference. So he is attracted to those who do."

"I would think the Doctor from his travels would realize how truly rare such individuals are."

"The Doctor can be absurdly sentimental. Particular turning points can attract his attention. Churchill the one individual preventing complete Nazi victory. Robespierre and the fate of democracy, Mao and the creation of a New China."

"And our present leaders are unworthy of his interest?"

"I suspect if you asked him, he would respond that since Michael Foot, Arthur Scargill and Ken Livingstone have so few friends, the current British Prime Minister should not expect too much credit for beating them."

"And what of me? Or my colleagues?"

"As you can imagine, the Doctor has a complete lack of sympathy with your goals."

"He really thinks I am so much worse than Mao and Robespierre?"

"Are you surprised that he would?"

The Comtesse laughed. "No, of course not. Now you say the Doctor will be here on the 19th of next month?"

"He will try to be. It's important you keep a low profile."

"Since the people responsible for causing a break in space/time are unaware that they are serving our goals, I think we can manage that. The key point is how to manage his assassination."

Turlough nodded grimly. "It's much easier to promise than to accomplish. You have to trust me. What you think is your present is the Doctor's past. If you strike prematurely you will merely insure his premature intervention."

"We are aware of the problem of temporal anachronism. Fortunately we have prepared a complete dossier." A snap of her fingers, and a Eurotrash minion brought in a file. Turlough flipped through it. "Yes. Very impressive."

"Mr. Turlough you have the advantage of knowing our planet's future. But I and my colleagues know quite a bit as well. For instance, in thirteen years, one month, three weeks and two days, it would be advisable not to be in New York. But not so far away that you would need a plane to return here quickly."

"The future seems very promising. If only for you."

"I have gotten very far on my abilities, Mr. Turlough. But ultimately, one's abilities only take you so far. Knowing who can take your farther; in the end, that is the greatest ability. And the Cult of the Mara will take me there. And you as well, Mr. Turlough."

 **Argolis November 17, 2932**

It had been centuries since the Doctor had arrived on Argolis and the Leisure Hive, and in doing so had saved the Argolin from extinction. The good news was they had now fully repopulated their world and they were now in an eternal alliance with their once mortal enemies the reptilian Foamasi. The less good news was that the militaristic elements that had nearly destroyed both civilizations had not gone away. Instead of "honorable" and insane warmongering, both species were masters of skullduggery and the exceptional skillful assassination. These skills were not really known, with the universe still thinking that both worlds were excellent examples of leisure planets. Few knew the truth, and the Doctor was one of those when they informed them of a weapon that could stop the Mara.

The TARDIS had materialized in the highest of Argolis high chambers. A special delegation of Argolin and Foamasi were there to welcome them, with the special device, slightly larger than a soccer ball, resting on a pedestal. The Argolin dignitaries were in their special robes, identical to when the Fourth Doctor had seen them. The Foamasi were in their own, somewhat cooler costumes. The Doctor came out of the TARDIS, followed by Clara and Adam while the sound of the cloister bell followed them before the TARDIS door closed.

"It doesn't look very big." Adam complained.

"Size isn't everything," said a female Argolin dignitary. "But you are understandably skeptical about how something so small could work against something that has ravaged entire planets. The Mara may flash through time and space at will. But even it can't enter the Time war."

The Doctor stared at the dignitary who smiled benignly. He bade his companions keep back while he approached the Device. He examined it, stared at it very closely, and was very tempted to touch it. He took out his sonic screwdriver and was about to turn it on to examine the Device closer. Then, with a shudder, he didn't. He put the screwdriver back into his pockets, and turned away.

"Follow me," he whispered to his companions as he passed them. A few steps later he whispered "Walk Faster." A few steps after that he yelled "Run!" They dashed to the TARDIS. Fortunately the door wasn't locked and Adam and Clara quickly entered it. "Doctor, is something wrong?" asked the Argolin dignitary.

"Yes. The Device. Instead of it destroying the Mara, the Mara has arranged it to destroy your entire planet."

"Is there anything we can do to stop it?"

"Absolutely nothing! Goodbye!" The TARDIS started to dematerialize. A second later the Device exploded, completely destroying Argolis, and buffeting the TARDIS in the shock wave.

 **Friday, March 7, 1988**

Simon and his friends were at the bar and they were arguing about the merits of science fiction. Actually Simon and Tara were arguing. Riley was busy reading some legal articles she desperately needed to catch up on, while Danny and Ronnie were only occasionally contributing to the conversation. Tara was pointing to a comic book. "You can't expect me to take this seriously. Look at this picture for instance. Those breasts are bigger than her head."

Simon was slightly embarrassed, but projected confidence. "You're not taking science fiction at its strongest. For instance, there are many thoughtful and profound novels."

"People say that, but I'm just not seeing it. Take Robert Heinlein for example. This is an author of who the most frequently asked question is 'Was he a fascist?'"

"Most American science fiction writers are not as conservative as Heinlein. Not remotely."

"Maybe so, but much science fiction just seems to be a kind of macho solipsism. Three years ago, some guy recommended _Dune_ as the greatest novel ever written. There's 26 hours of my life I'm not getting back again."

"I saw the movie 'Dune,'" Riley interrupted. "It was interesting, in a sort of visually audacious and striking way without actually being enjoyable."

"Look, science fiction is a mansion with many rooms. You just haven't found the right room. There's this woman writer named Ursulla K. Le Guin. And she's written this novel called _The Dispossessed_..."

"I am not going to spend twelve hours just to learn that physicists aren't the best judge of literature."

"OK, then you can spend twenty minutes reading one of her short stories. There's one called 'The Ones that walk away from Omelas.' It's actually a very striking story about what an ideal society would be like. Now I don't want to give away..."

It was at this point that Danny looked over to the bar, and decided that his brother wasn't so busy that he couldn't chat with him. He strode over and sat on a stool.

"What will you have Danny?"

"I think I'll have a vodka shot."

Ben winced. How could someone so big hold his liquor so poorly? "We appear to be a little low on vodka right now, but there's just enough for one shot."

"So how's work going?'

"Well, actually I've been thinking about how to be a better bartender. One thing would be to make better cocktails. Of course the best way to create a really good Rob Roy or Four Horseman is to have really good Scotch. So good, that it would be too expensive for the bar. But I've got some other ideas, and some of them actually show promise."

"Well that's good. Are you dating anyone?"

"Actually I have. For more than a month now."

"Really? That must be a record."

"Yeah, I suppose it could be,"

"Is she anyone I know?"

"Of course you do. It's Riley."

"Riley? You mean Riley Grenier?"

"Of course. Who else would I mean?"

"Wow. That's quite...well that's not, that's not what I would have thought."

"Is it? I mean, it's not what I thought would happen when I graduated high school. But now that's it happened it actually makes a lot of sense."

"Is it serious?"

"Hmm. Now that you mention it, it is kind of. I mean we're not going to be picking out china patterns any time soon, but actually things are going really well. I mean it's not perfect. There have been quarrels: one big one arose from the fact that I'm apparently the only person I know who thinks _The Princess Bride_ is boring. But otherwise..."

"Actually Ben, I've heard that it's not a good idea to date your friends."

"It's actually not a good idea to sleep with your friends and then pretend nothing's happened. Danny, can I tell you something in confidence?"

"What?"

"Riley has told me that she's actually always had kind of a crush on me. I mean that's ironic, isn't it? Kind of makes me regret that I called her fat all those years. Also it makes her regret that she shoved me in lockers all those times."

"Yes. Yes. Yes. I imagine it would."

"I know what you're thinking Danny."

"You do?"

"You think that is just another one night stand. Or a one month stand. Or a two month stand. Whatever. You think I'll be my foolish insensitive self and I'll end up hurting her. And I understand where you're coming from."

"You do?"

"Of course. You've always been Riley's closest friend. It's natural that you're protective of her. But listen. I may be impulsive, and lack discipline, and I may not be the most sensible of people. But I don't hurt my friends. I may not always do it perfectly, and I may not do it immediately, but in the end I always stand by them. And Riley would still be one of my closest friends even if I wasn't dating her."

"Ah. Ah. I see. Actually Ben, I think I could use another shot."

"Danny, you haven't finished your first one."

"What?"

"It's right there in your hand. You haven't touched it."

"Oh. Yes. Well. Yes, well, I could still use another one."

"OK. Well, I'll have to go to the back and get some more vodka." Ben left just as Simon approached Danny. "That actually went much better than I expected. And who would have though that Ronnie knew so much about microbiology?" Simon then noticed Danny's stunned expression. "Gee Danny, what's the matter? You look as if some former girlfriend just told you she was pregnant."

Danny then realized Simon's presence. "Actually, it's sort of the exact opposite."

"Really? Well to be honest, I don't have that much experience in the subject, but I'd imagine men who actually experienced the exact opposite would look a lot happier."

 **Thursday, July 28, 1988**

The Comtesse de Contarini had gathered the closest and most trusted members of the Cult of the Mara on her private yacht, which for the next few weeks would sail the Eastern seaboard close to New York City. Everything available was a model of the most expensive good taste. Most of her colleagues were Eurotrash, but they included very rich Eurotrash, while others included one of NATO's leading generals, an archaeologist whose genius far exceeded his renown, and at least two physicists of alarming ability. One of the quartet was the Comtesse's current lover, and she respected him so much that she had no immediate plans to slit his throat. And there was also Turlough, who was reading that day's "Times," whose pages included the headline "Interesting Temporal Experiments scheduled at Columbia." The Comtesse took a glass of a champagne (a slight weakness of hers) and chatted with the General. "Quite frankly," he said "UNIT is just a bunch of sentimentalists. The rot goes everywhere. Four centuries of imperial and monarchical warfare and the best Britain provides is Lethbridge-Stewart. Disgusting."

"Really? But we wouldn't want the best leaders to be wasted in the UN."

"Unfortunately, UNIT has occasionally saved the world. It's a bad example."

"Fortunately, they won't be running the post Cold war world. Of course, it helps us that we know how things are going to end."

"Yes, the world looks very well for us indeed even if this Mara thing turns out to be complete rubbish."

"Sentimentality is an emotion whose time has passed. Consider my two sisters. I spent five thousand dollars to quickly tutor them and make sure they wouldn't embarrass my husband when they met him. I am a model of civility and politeness towards them. But no more and they know it. They know their place. And soon, so the rest of the world. So many cheap and petty people. The world is full of men, many of whom ostentatiously assert their dignity, who would betray their 'loved ones' for a cheap little slut. Don't you agree Mr. Turlough?"

Turlough rose out of his chair. "I can't say I have sufficient experience. It's not something I've given a great deal of thought. But I do know there are some people, however outwardly pathetic, who would do what you say, but then crawl through broken glass to get their wives' forgiveness. And they would get it."

The Comtesse snorted. "Forgiveness is a sign of weakness. Two pathetic gerbils trying to keep themselves safe from the cold and the dark."

"Perhaps. But it does make our task more difficult."

An aide attracted the Comtesse's attention. She was soon speaking on the phone with considerable insight to her husband about two matters: (1) how to ensure the prominence of Italy's ruling party and (2) how to create the party that would substitute for it when the ruling party's massive corruption was discovered in a few years time. Turlough turned his attention to an audio device that was literally the future of compact discs. He toyed with it, listening to the upcoming No 1 single, Steve Winwood's "Roll with it," then flipped through some buttons, hearing brief excerpts of "You Shook me All Night Long," "How Soon is Now" and "Old Days."

 **The TARDIS**

"Why won't these earplugs keep out the Cloister Bell?" complained Adam.

"Because the Bell is as much telepathic as it is auditory," replied the Doctor impatiently.

Adam threw out the plugs, while Clara fruitlessly dialed her cell phone. "Any luck, Clara?" asked the Doctor.

"Absolutely nothing. Not only can I not contact Earth, I can't contact anything."

"I thought that would happen." The Doctor paced briefly as the TARDIS traveled. There was then an abrupt shift that forced the trio a metre or two to the left.

"Have we arrived?' asked Adam from the floor.

"Not yet." answered the Doctor. It took an instant more for the TARDIS to dematerialize. "All right. Now listen very carefully. The people I am about to encounter are some of the deadliest, cruelest and most powerful entities in the universe. There is an extremely good chance they will kill me immediately, and they would certainly kill you without a thought. So it is absolutely vital you stay here and don't say a thing. In fact, if you could not breathe that would be tremendously helpful." The Doctor opened the door and walked out into a dark, shadowy and sinister something.

Clara and Adam waited for what did _not_ seem an eternity. In fact, it was less than 45 seconds when the Doctor shouted. "You can come out. There's nothing that they can do to you."

The two walked out of the TARDIS into the shadowy, gloomy indistinct world. Adam moved towards a strange, unusually tall robed and hooded figure that lay on the ground with its throat slit, while Clara had the instinct and good sense to stay back. "What is this creature?" wondered Adam.

"That _was_ a God of Ragnarok."

"There were to be allies against the Mara?" asked Clara.

"Allies, play them against each other so they destroy each other, whatever. Regardless, they can't do anything to help us. There can't be more than 17 of them at any given time. But right now there are none."

"Why 17?"

"Have you heard of the Mizoguchi-Sembene-Pavese prime number theorem?"

"No."

"Well don't worry about it. It's far too complicated, and not really that germane to our situation. What's important is that we are running out of options. We can't go back to where the Mara first arrived, we can't create devices that will stop the Mara, and we're running out of allies who could stop the Mara themselves." The three walked back to the TARDIS and re-entered it. The Doctor closed the door behind him, and started the TARDIS moving again. The cloister bell was still ringing. "I have one incredibly dangerous gambit left to play. But before I do that, there's one thing left to do. We have to go to the Well of Souls."

 **Saturday, July 30, 1988**

Ronnie left the confessional and looked around nervously. "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen." She went to some effort to avoid the gaze of the surprisingly young nun who was walking through the cathedral, so much so she didn't notice Simon walk up behind her and tap her on the shoulder.

"So what's our hip worldly wise New Ager going to confession for?"

In a cafe a couple of blocks away, Ronnie slowly drank her coffee across from Simon. "It's not unreasonable that I would go to a church. I am Polish after all."

Simon shook his head. "No. This is New York City. I can tell the difference between devout Catholics, not so devout Catholics, indifferent Catholics, and Catholics who don't give a damn. And for the last six months, you've clearly been in the fourth category. So why were you there? You feel guilty, but what do you feel guilty about? Have you hurt your friends? You're not close to Ben, and not only has Tara not dated anyone in the last two months, she's spent the last three weeks in Atlanta visiting relatives and attending the Democratic National Convention." He looked more closely at Ronnie, and saw a brief tremor as she held her coffee. "You're afraid of something. But of what?"

Ronnie hesitated, and put her coffee down. "It's the Mara. I feel it in my dreams, and it's not going away."

"The Mara is a figure from Hindu mythology. How could you be afraid of an obscure mythological concept?"

"That must be where I heard it from. I don't know why I call it the Mara. I just do." She took another sip of her coffee. "I feel it. I know it's insane, and at the same time I feel that it's not after me directly. It's working through one of my friends, I don't know who."

Simon stared at her closely. "You are not the shallow airhead you want men to think you are." Neither of them noticed the nun walk past them outside. "But you have to realize that the New Age talk is just sentimental rubbish. If you're really afraid of something, why do you use it to try to find the truth?"

Ronnie gave a short, high-pitched bitter laugh. "It's like the joke about the drunk looking for his keys. Even though he didn't lose them by the lamp post, the light's so much better there." She realized that Simon was staring at her, and then it occurred to her that the squeak that she trained herself so hard to suppress had returned. Then she realized that Simon wasn't starting _into_ her eyes, but _at_ her contact lenses.

Simon laughed. "It's probably nothing. I'm sure you'll get over it in a few days."

 **The Shadow Proclamation, Wednesday, August 6, 2014**

The Shadow Proclamation's headquarters had the remarkable ability of appearing in excellent taste notwithstanding the many civilizations that encountered it. So it was a bit disappointing that the TARDIS materialized not in the main halls, but in one of the more obscure corridors. "You may have wondered why the Shadow Proclamation has the reputation it does," the Doctor spoke as he left the TARDIS. "After all, it hasn't actually stopped a major crisis, like the Time War, or the Davros Time Bomb, or the reappearance of Gallifrey, and it certainly hasn't been of any use fighting the Mara. But it does have one thing that makes people give it some respect. And that is the Well of Souls."

"And that is what exactly?" asked Clara.

"It's a sort of temporal null zone. It's to be distinguished from the Void, or from the gaps between separate universes. In a way it's neutral ground. The Osirans called it the Refuge from Nihilism. The Logopolitans called it the Pythagorean Nursery. The Important thing is that it's possible for me to meet the Mara without either of us hurting each other."

"So what are you going to do?"

"I am going to have a chat with it. Meanwhile, the two of you stay here."

"We'll be safe in the TARDIS?" inquired Adam. "I mean the TARDIS is basically indestructible."

The Doctor snorted. "Of course, the TARDIS isn't indestructible. If it were, the time war would be very short and one-sided. No, _I'll_ be safe once I'm in the Well of Souls. But conceivably the Mara could destroy the TARDIS in an instant. Oh, one more thing." The Doctor snapped his fingers, revealing the computer in Adam's head. Then he aimed his sonic screwdriver at it, causing it to activate. "The computer in your head has been extremely valuable. We could not have gotten as far as we have without it. I've just activated a program, which will be vital in the Mara's defeat. Stay here, don't move, and certainly don't get lost."

The Doctor walked down a couple of corridors, and then opened a particularly non-descript door. This opened, of course, to the Well of Souls. There was a glowing green light that reached down and up endlessly and therefore vaguely resembled a well. The Well was far larger than the Shadow Proclamantion's headquarters. "At last, we meet Doctor." The Mara had materialized within the green light, its serpentine form sardonic and imposing.

"Indeed we do," said the Doctor, who quickly took out a pocket mirror and thrust it in the Mara's face. Nothing happened. The Mara chuckled. "Surely, you realize that I've grown beyond such a simple trick."

The Doctor put the mirror away. "It was worth a shot."

"You are running out of options, Doctor. Is your plan that with force and science failing you, you will defeat me with sheer eloquence, convincing me of the purity of your cause?"

"Not really. I must say I am curious. Did you ever imagine back on Deva Loka that you could be so powerful?"

"To be honest no. It's startling, actually. The whole scope of the universe is striking. And indulging these emotions on such a level. Not only does my power increase the more destruction I cause, the whole experience is intoxicating. I couldn't really imagine emotions to that extent."

"You know, there are other emotions you could be experiencing."

"Yes. So I've been told. Let's see: there's wit, and the emotions associated with it. I've had those emotions. It's foolish to think you can't laugh at the corpses of your enemies. What else? Benevolence, good faith, compassion, a strong sense of justice and a strong sense of indignation at injustice and its accomplices. And there's more: the desire for the best for one's friends, willingness to work hard to achieve it, the willingness to make your friends the best they can be, and also geniality, the pleasure in their company, happiness at their success, a respect for their character, solidarity, and oh, a boundless self-sacrifice. What else? I feel like I'm missing something. What could it possibly be?" The Doctor winced inwardly at the Mara's sarcasm. "You don't really know where I come from Doctor. You think that because I am only malice, there are no depths to me. You'll never guess what allowed me to come back into this Universe. But even if you did Doctor, it would serve you no good. You could defeat me Doctor. It's not very probable, but it is conceivable. After me comes someone mightier than I, whose sandals I am not fit to untie. You can't defeat this enemy. You will try of course, and one day you will confront that foe. And you will lose absolutely everything."

 **Thursday, August 18, 1988**

It was a quarter to midnight on the Comtesse's yacht, which sailed close to Liberty Island in New York Harbour. The Comtesse was waiting with Turlough and her closest colleagues in the Cult of the Mara. One of them could not contain his excitement as he looked at the clock. "To think we're so close to the most important day in humanity's history."

"I'm afraid you'll have to be a little more patient." replied the Comtesse. "The Mara itself will not arise until at least some time in the afternoon. It would be wise not to be too close to it when that happens. Fortunately, we can track it. To the outsider, it's existence is almost inconceivable. But we know the special nowhere that it exists, and we can feel it as it scratches against the border that separates it from our world."

The colleague showed a grimace of fear, but the Comtesse was perfectly calm. "Mr. Turlough, would you like some champagne? I assure you that it should suit even your unique palate."

"Thank you, I would be honored." The colleague poured it, and another glass for the Comtesse. "Now Turlough, if you could tell us about the Doctor. I'm surprised he hasn't arrived yet."

"I've been in contact with him. But I don't know which incarnation it will be. If it's the right one, I can assassinate him myself. If not, I'll have to go to some elaborate lengths to make him think the Mara has been defeated."

"And how do you plan to do that?"

"The Doctor's experience with the psychic and telepathic abilities of the Mara is limited. Timelords should know how it works more than humans do, but in practice, they don't know that much more. Those psychic spirals will be very useful in confusing him." And he pointed to two that were on a small table. As he did so, they started to glow. The Comtesse stood up, first in surprise, now in pleasure. "It is happening. I feel its presence! The Mara is rising! The Mara is rising!" Everyone on board the yacht joined the Comtesse in her chant.

 **Friday, August 19, 1988, Columbia University**

It was past two in the afternoon when Danny entered the unusual lab where Simon and his colleagues were preparing the big experiment that would supposedly make them all famous. "After all," Simon told Danny a few days earlier, **"** the greatest scientific discoveries had only changed man's future. This could change the present and much of the past as well!" Danny did not know what a cyclotron was supposed to look like, let alone the radical changes the team had made to it that they could carry out the experiment. On one side of the rather large room was a series of dials and gauges, while printouts were constantly chattering from a computer printer. Nearby there was a bank of phones, as well as a series of speakers so that Simon could hear from similar laboratories all over the planet. There was an electrical generator in the room, as well as links to the more powerful generators elsewhere in the building. On one of the speakers, a low Texas drawl berated Simon as he ticked off the preparations.

"That is one thick Texas accent," Danny whispered to Simon.

"Is it really? I've kind of forgotten after hearing it every day for the past three months."

"It's kind of hard to ignore."

"Not really. What one notices is the arrogance, the contempt, the superciliousness, the boundless condescension, and so many other lovely qualities, that press themselves upon you again and again, minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day, and so on and so forth. After that, the Texas accent gets completely forgotten."

"Wow. I didn't know he was such a jerk."

"And that's not the worst part. He is just one stroke of intuition, one lucky break, one great day from being the greatest mind since Einstein, and boy does he know it. And boy does he not let you forget it. I know you're not the most devout Catholic, but if you ever doubt that one can be an atheist and nevertheless be an absolute saint, all you have to do is look at Pr. Steerforth Coogan's infinitely patient roommate."

Just then Pr. Coogan spoke up. "Is there somebody with you Kostelanetz? We don't want anyone releasing information prematurely."

"There's no need to worry. Not only can my friend be discreet, nobody is going to believe we've revolutionized physics because of what _this_ hockey player says. No offense, Danny."

"None taken."

"I still don't like it. It violates the spirit of the protocols."

"Oooh. Pr. Coogan, I'm afraid it's time to switch from California to Delhi **."** Simon brusquely cut off California, and started making another call. "Danny, I'd like to introduce you to a new friend of mine. He's about my age, and notwithstanding being from India, shares many of my science fiction interests." Simon paused for a moment, and started redialing the number.

"Is there a problem?"

"The telephone lines in India can be murder. About 50% of the stress I've gotten on this project comes from trying to navigate the connections. I'd hate to have to work as an Indian telephone operator...Ah! Here we go! Rajesh, is that you?"

"Simon, so good to hear from you! Of course it's past midnight in Delhi."

"Raj, I'd like to introduce you to Danny O'Malley my old high school friend. Danny, this is Dr. Rajesh Mukherjee, our project man in Delhi."

"Hello, Daniel! I've heard so much about you. And I'm fascinated with hockey."

"Really? What do you like most about it?"

"Oh. Ah. Actually, I was just being polite. Hockey is the game that's vaguely likely cricket?"

"No, that would be baseball," explained Simon. "Hockey is like football."

"It's not like football at all." objected Danny.

"That's their term for soccer," added Simon, "Only it involves skating on ice, and using sticks to move a very small ball."

"Ah." said Raj. "I suspect the ice thing would be my biggest problem with the game. Wait, I did hear there's a player in the game. Someone named Gretzky was recently traded. Are you on his team?"

"No, completely different one."

"Oh, you poor bastard." Danny decided that sports wasn't the best subject of conversation. "How is this time travel mechanism supposed to work?"

"It's incredibly complicated," Raj unhelpfully explained.

"It is very difficult," admitted Simon, "since what we are trying to do is supposedly impossible. But I think I can vaguely explain the basic concept. You understand the concept of square roots, such that the square root of 9 is 3, and the square root of 16 is 4?"

"Yes," said Danny a little more slowly than either scientist was comfortable with.

"Now, you remember that not only does 16 have a positive square root, but also a negative square root, because if you multiply -4 by -4, you end with 16."

"Yeah," agreed Danny even more slowly.

"OK, then it follows that negative numbers don't have square roots, because two negative numbers multiplied by themselves make a positive number. The very concept is an unreal number. But, and this is the key point, this unreal number, which we call 'i' can still be used in mathematical analysis with real consequences."

"I do remember that!"

"You do?" asked Simon with genuine surprise.

"Yeah, I remember after finishing the Grade 12 Math Exam that I would never have to think about that again."

"OK, basically what we're using is an unreal number, actually a whole series of them."

"Like the square roots of a negative number!" Danny realized.

"Yes, except much much more complicated," Raj interjected.

"How so?"

"Well, it would probably take three hours to explain it to Riley, and then another half an hour to explain it to Ben, and then another two hours to explain it to you," said Simon. "The point is that the mathematics allows us to achieve time travel."

"Unless we've made a mistake in the math," admitted Raj, "in which case we're just overheating extremely expensive machinery."

"The point is that if this works, we'll be winning Nobel Prizes for decades to come. Playboy centerfolds will want to sleep with me...as long as they're majors in theoretical physics."

 **The TARDIS**

The cloister bell was still ringing and Adam paced nervously in the console room while Clara waited and the Doctor rapidly worked out some final calculations. "Adam stop pacing. All right, I have a plan. It is an extremely dangerous plan. There is a strong probability that it will fail, and if it fails the Mara will ravage all of time and space. But since the Mara will do that anyway if it isn't stopped, just a little more slowly, we have to try it." The Doctor took a blue crystal from out of his pocket.

"Isn't that the gem from Metebellis Three?" asked Clara. "I thought the Mara destroyed it in the battle of Cavallax."

"Not quite. It is _a_ gem from Metebellis three. The one you saw that we picked up from Metebellis Three and saw destroyed had the Mara's psychic signature when it destroyed the sentient spiders living there. The gem I have here absorbed some of that signature. I'm going to plug this into the TARDIS' telepathic circuits. The cloister bell and the calculations I've been working on, is going to find where the Mara currently is in time and space, and gem will send a signal to the Mara."

"And that will somehow attack the Mara?" speculated Adam.

"Absolutely not. What it will do..." but just then the TARDIS shook abruptly, as part of the Mara's previous attack on the TARDIS. The three steadied themselves and the Doctor continued: "What it will do is it will allow the Mara to find the TARDIS, and try to take it over."

"Uh what?" The Doctor plugged the gem into a panel on the TARDIS console. "You see, the Mara has some idea of time travel, but if it was able to absorb the TARDIS it would know _everything_ about time travel. It would know infinitely more than me. It's too tempting for it to resist." The Doctor snapped his fingers and Adam's computer revealed itself. He pointed his sonic screwdriver at it and activated several systems.

"Oww! That hurts! What are you doing?"

"I need you to concentrate and think, to summon the Mara using the gem as a psychic conduit. If I tried it, the Mara might think it's a trap. But it thinks so little of you it will believe that you are selling out the TARDIS to save yourself." There was a short unpleasant whine, which mercifully ended. The Doctor snapped his fingers and the computer closed.

"So once the Mara tries to take the TARDIS over, you have a plan to stop it?" wondered Clara.

"Yes I do."

"And you're going to tell us what it is?" a fearful Adam queried.

"Absolutely not. The Mara is an extremely powerful entity with enormous telepathic powers. The fewer people knowing my plans the better."

Just then the Mara manifested itself in the control room as a giant serpent. "Oh please Doctor. I so wanted to find out."

 **Friday, August 19, 1988: The Bar**

Ben was working at the bar. It was not actually his shift. He had just dropped in for a couple of hours to relieve someone else. It was almost two-thirty and he was wiping a table when Carter barked at him. "O'Malley, the new boss wants to see you ASAP in the Soho headquarters."

"Right now? OK, I'll just go back to my apartment and change into something more formal." Ben was only dressed in jeans and a T-Shirt.

"You don't have time for that. It's some new management technique that cultivates informality or something. You have to see him now."

"What about Riley? She's going to be here in a few minutes."

"Don't worry about that. There's a train that takes you to Soho leaving the nearest station in under three minutes. Mr. Smith wants you to be on it. Go! Now!" And Ben dropped his washcloth and ran out of the bar, not noticing Ronnie coming in the other way.

 **Columbia**

"All right, Raj, it's time to get started." And Simon went to one of the control panels and began flipping a number of switches and dials.

Danny was curious. "Why does this project have to be all over the planet?"

"Well, relativity is a key part of the time travel puzzle. But with the speed of light being so quick, it helps to have as much distance as possible."

"How fast is the speed of light again?"

"300,000 Kilometers a second, Danny."

"And how large is a kilometer again?"

"A kilometer is 62% of a mile, Danny. Everything go well in Delhi, Raj?"

"Peachy keen, Simon." There was a slight silence. "There's probably better Anglo-American slang I should be using."

"Don't worry about it Raj," as Simon raced to a far corner, and removed the tarp from what turned out to be another console. He pulled down a large lever and noise arose from the converted cyclotron. Simon smiled with pride as other lights turned on all across the room. "We have begun!"

Danny winced at the sounds being made. "What is that noise?!"

"Oh, yeah. Some of the first transmissions are at a very high frequency. They'll stop in a few minutes."

"It sounds like somebody's screaming."

 **The TARDIS**

The Doctor turned to his companions. "Run!" And the three of them dashed out of the console room.

"Oh. Cat and mouse. I love this game," smiled the Mara. "The only thing that prevents me catching you, are all the incredible things in your console room that I have to take over. Oh wait. I can both take control of the TARDIS and catch and destroy the three of you!"

The three of them were now running down the corridors in the bowels of the TARDIS. "My head is killing me." complained Adam.

"Adam, the computer in your head is the one thing in the TARDIS the Mara doesn't control. You have to live with the pain."

"Do we have a temporary plan?" asked Clara.

"Well, if we are very lucky, we can use some of the TARDIS' dimensional transcendence tricks to hide from the Mara just long enough until we make our move."

The Mara then materialized right in front of them. "No, I don't think that's going to work." it announced. It seemed that the Mara had paralyzed them. Just then, the cloister bell, which was still tolling, suddenly gave a high-pitched shriek, before returning to its normal sound, but now twice as loud. The apparition faded briefly, as the three ran in the opposite direction.

"What the hell caused that?" shouted Clara.

The Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver, as well as a couple of awkward improvised thingamabobs and looked at the readings. "I knew the TARDIS' telepathic circuits were especially vulnerable to the Mara. So I rigged a little surprise in them for the Mara."

"Well lucky for us!" agreed Adam.

"Not quite. That stratagem was supposed to be the final gambit against the Mara. So it's not the best of news that it's already encountered it. And gotten over it." The Mara's voice could be heard over the audio systems. "I am genuinely miffed. That was mildly irritating."

 **Soho**

When Ben entered "Mr. Smith's" headquarters, Turlough invited him into his office and into a chair in front of his desk. "Miss Cassetti," he said to his secretary. "There's no further need for you today. You can go home now."

"But it's not even three o'clock."

"Consider it an early weekend. Goodbye Miss Cassetti."

As she left, Ben stared at Turlough. "Is something the matter Mr. O'Malley?"

"It's nothing."

"No please tell me."

"Well, it's a fairly hot and humid day."

"Yes, so I've been informed."

"And this building doesn't have air conditioning."

"No, it doesn't."

"And you're wearing a suit. But you're not sweating."

"Very perceptive Mr. O'Malley. Do you know that you're the first person in the last two weeks to have noticed that? You're not usually that perceptive Mr. O'Malley, but occasionally you can be." Ben shifted awkwardly in his seat. The t-shirt he was wearing was a clear cause. It commemorated, not Bobby Sands and the IRA hunger strikes of the early eighties, but the lord Mayor of Cork Terence MacSwiney who had died in a hunger strike during the Irish war of independence. On the shirt was a quote from him: "It is not those who can inflict the most, but those that can suffer the most who will prevail." As Turlough looked at the shirt, Ben blushed. "I'm sorry. I didn't know you were British."

"Oh, I'm not British at all, Mr. O'Malley. There's no need to feel awkward." Turlough then paused. "Though I did know someone. She was, I suppose, a friend. Yes, let's call her that. She was Australian. Stereotypically so."

"Oh. I've never actually met any Australians, so I wouldn't know what an Australian stereotype is."

"I see. Let me think. Do you know Yahoo Serious? Kylie Minogue?" Ben, quite understandably, gave no sign of recognition. "Oh wait. Crocodile Dundee. Brash. Tactless. Brave. The last quality is not part of the stereotype, though Australians flatter themselves into thinking it is. But she was indeed very brave. But now we turn to you Mr. O'Malley. What's on your mind?"

"Actually, I was just about to meet someone before you called Mr. Carter."

"Yes, I know. I have already arranged for someone to pick up your wife. She plays a very important part in this afternoon's events."

 **The Bar**

Riley was sitting at the bar wearing a sleeveless purple shirt with some black stripes, and drinking some ginger ale. A man entered, wearing a grey suit, but no tie. He was slightly balding, but any unflattering impressions was countered by his beard and, more importantly, his large size and (accurate) impression of physical strength. "Mrs. O'Malley, my boss has asked me to pick you up and take you to your husband. I believe Mr. Carter explained that to you."

Riley gulped down the ginger ale and awkwardly got off the stool. She looked slightly larger for someone six months pregnant. The driver escorted her to his car, just making sure that Ronnie would miss them as she left the bar's restroom, but not escaping the gaze of a young nun walking by them in the street.

 **Monday, March 17, 1988**

Rileywas sitting at a table in the bar after closing hours. She couldn't stop crying. Ben just finished drying a glass, sat down across from her and reached out for her hand. "Please don't cry. I promise you this gets better."

"You can't promise me that. You can't be sure of that."

"I know this isn't the best way to start our life together. But it's not like something this has never happened before. Lots of marriages start out this way."

"It's also why this country has a 50% divorce rate. Oh God, I've just ruined my life."

"Look, I know this isn't promising. But if we work together, we can make it better."

"Do you have any idea how difficult it will be to raise a child? In this city? On the little that the two of us make? And it's not as if we live in a country which encourages women to both raise a child and work at the same time."

"I know I'm not the most reliable of people. As this situation clearly shows. But I promise you that I will earn your trust."

"Even if I believed you, there is so much out there that will break your promise to me."

"But on the plus side, there's my brother who will beat the crap out of me if I screw up."

Riley laughed feebly. "I will probably regret this everyday of my life."

"Not always. Not everything. I can promise you that."

 **The TARDIS**

As the three raced down still more corridors, the TARDIS made an alarming groaning noise. "What's that?" yelled Adam.

"It's the TARDIS resisting the Mara's efforts to seize control of it." The TARDIS' groans turned into an alarming high-pitched whine, then abruptly stopped. "Well, that's good news." said Adam.

The Doctor looked at one of his improved do-hickeys. "Actually that means the Mara is gaining control of the TARDIS faster that I expected." The three continued down another corridor. "Doctor" the Mara announced.

"That wasn't an apparition!" Clara realized. "It's gained control of the TARDIS' speaker systems!"

"I still haven't completely controlled the TARDIS, but I can still do that and kill you and your friends. I just thought I would let you know."

The corridor come to an end. "Split up," said the Doctor as he went with Clara to the right, while Adam went to the left. As the two dashed down a corridor and then down a flight of stairs, the Doctor asked for Clara's cell phone. She quickly gave it to him.

"How do you think Adam is doing?" she asked. But just then a video screen appeared. The Mara had gotten control of that aspect of the TARDIS as well. The two saw Adam trapped and helpless. It did not take long for him to die. "Ooo! A new sub-system!" the Mara burbled happily.

 **Friday, August 19, 2015 The bar**

Tara looked at her watch and paced nervously. Ronnie spoke off-handedly, as if she didn't fully register Tara's presence. "I feel it. I feel something's about to happen. Something I've been worried about for months."

Tara approached Ronnie, and waved her hand in front of her face. "Hello?"

"It's going to happen soon. I don't know why I know it, but it is."

Tara moved away from her and then with a start stared at the mirror over the bar. For just an instant a message appeared: YOU ARE NOT THE HERO OF YOUR OWN LIFE.

 **Columbia**

After several minutes of making interesting and occasionally alarming noises, the machines moved into a smooth rhythm. Simon smiled broadly. "For at least the next five minutes, and maybe the next ten, nothing is actually going to happen. After that, the whole nature of space/time will change completely. But until that happens we should sit down and relax."

Simon and Danny sat down and for the next thirty seconds very little happened. Danny said nothing, and Simon tried not to fidget as he waited. He turned to Danny. "So how are things?"

Danny sighed. "I know I haven't told you about this. But I can't stop thinking about Riley, and how she ended up with my brother."

"No. Really? I would never have guessed."

"Oh yes. You may not have realized it, but for the past five months, I've been unable to think of anything else."

"Danny, I know. I was being sarcas...look, now is literally as good a time as any to talk about it."

Danny sighed again. "I keep wondering what I did wrong."

Simon nodded. "OK, I'm going to tell you a Jewish joke. And because I'm telling it to you, it's all right for you to repeat it. A devout man desperately wants to win the lottery. Goes to the synagogue and prays that he may win. Saturday comes round, but he doesn't win. Goes to the synagogue again and remonstrates with God, pointing out he comes to temple at least three ties a week, how devout he has been and so on and so forth. Saturday comes round again and again he doesn't win. Back he goes to the synagogue and prays again to God, this time in despair. Suddenly the clouds part and God himself appears with a grey beard leaning down between the clouds: 'OK. So you want to win the lottery. But please, meet me halfway: _buy a ticket_.'"

Danny pondered the joke. "Well, it's too late now to do anything about it."

"You mean it was too late now. But in a few minutes we will have successfully provided the theoretical breakthrough for time travel."

"What?"

"Look if you could go back in the past and change anything about it, what would you do?"

"Uh, let me think. Oh, I know. I'd go back and time and try to kill Hitler."

"Yeah, that was my first idea as well. But then all kinds of problems arose. Aside from the whole unpredictability in simply removing an event as large as the entire second world war, consider a smaller, but arguably more radical problem. When you were conceived there was only a 50% chance you would be a boy. Your parents and mine were born well after Hitler had already changed the course of human events, which means there's only a 25% chance your parents could actually be the couple they were. There's another 25% chance they could be a couple, but of opposite sexes, and a 50% chance they'd be the same sex. Which means of course no you. If we changed the past that radically, it could mean that none of the scientists who actually created time travel would exist to invent it in the first place. Which leads to some really nasty paradoxes."

"I think I'm getting a headache."

"Trust me, that the least of the problems we have to face. Instead we have to try something much smaller scale."

"Like what?"

"Oh, I don't know. Like preventing the conception of your future niece or nephew."  
 **  
**Danny was shocked. "That's horrible! I couldn't do something like that!"

"Of course you couldn't. You're the kindest and sweetest guy I know. You wouldn't think of doing something like that." Simon then turned to a clock on a nearby console. "That's what why we're going to think it for you." he said to himself.

 **Soho**

"Now Mr. O'Malley, I've heard a lot about your family. You're married and you and your wife are expecting a child soon."

"Yes, in about three months or so."

"You're very fortunate."

"Yes, yes I am."

"Many people might argue that you don't deserve your good luck."

"Excuse me?"

"Well because of your incompetence in using birth control, you get both a spouse distinctly more intelligent than you, and a child as well. One might argue that's not fair. One might also argue that you are not likely to find a better woman than your wife. By contrast, your wife has incurred a considerable sacrifice by being with you. There are some countries that seek to reconcile a woman's working life with her role as a mother. The American republic is not one of those countries, and is not going to be one in the foreseeable future."

"I know the coming months are going to be difficult."

"Do you really?"

"But I promise I will do everything I can to do the best possible husband and father."

Turlough got up and paced in front of his desk for dramatic effect. "Do you know what Mr. O'Malley? I believe you."

"Really?"

"Oh very much so. I assure you that you would not be here if I had any reason to doubt that. Now what do you know about the Mara?"

"The Mara? Wait! That's the strange thing Riley's weird friend keeps talking about. But I thought it was imaginary."

"A perfectly reasonable assumption. But unfortunately quite incorrect. I assure you the Mara is very real and very dangerous."

"I don't understand."

"I know what people think of you, Mr. O'Malley. They think you are a callow fool who ruined your wife's life by getting her pregnant. But what I am about to tell you is that..." and Turlough looked at his watch and waited for about ten seconds. Ben couldn't see the watch, and therefore didn't realize it was on London time. "...as of this moment, you are the most important person in the world."

"Really? More important than Gorbachev?"

"Yes, actually. And this notwithstanding the fact in the next 18 months he will do more than your leaders could imagine possible. They will be stunned by his generosity. But they will get over it, and quickly take it as no more than their due. A new era of peace and prosperity will begin, of which neither Gorbachev nor his country, however broadly defined, will be the beneficiaries." Turlough paused again. "But the Mara could turn all that to ashes."

"But what can I do against some evil mystical entity?"

"It does seem very strange. But I assure you that you are instrumental in its defeat. Now do you know what a dialectic is?"

Ben tried to remember. "Actually in the first week of college I had to read a paper on what it was. But it was so complicated I couldn't make head or tail of it. It was one of those things that made me drop out of college a couple of months later. Ummm, thesis, antithesis, synthe..."

"That Mr. O'Malley is merely a superficial popularization. Since our time is finite, let me say that the dialectic can be considered a form of moral irony. There are many Marxist examples which you Americans find unpopular. Let me suggest a more congenial one. In the aftermath of Columbus, millions of the indigenous inhabitants of this hemisphere did not survive the arrival of the Europeans. Epidemic disease appears to be a major factor. Yes, let's go with that one. But the deaths of these millions, or more accurately tens of millions, allowed hope and opportunity to tens of millions of people from the rest of the world who would have never known the prosperity and freedom they would have found in their homeland."

Ben pondered this. "So what you're saying is that out of great suffering and pain, great good can come?"

Turlough nodded and briefly turned his back on Ben. "And the opposite as well," he added, mostly to himself. He then faced Ben again. "The important thing is this. Notwithstanding the many things you undoubtedly overheard at your wedding, I can imagine a future with your and your wife. Many don't think your marriage will last. But I can imagine you loving each decades in your future."

"You can see us happy and prosperous?"

"I didn't say you'd be happy. Probably not, quite frankly. I certainly didn't say you'd be rich. You would be very lucky to be making more money than your father a quarter-century from now."

"But you said the earth was going to enter a new age of peace and prosperity."

"I did indeed. But they're not going to share it. And conceiving a daughter out of wedlock is as good a reason as any other for them not to do that for you."

Ben was nonplussed. "My daughter? Actually I don't know the sex of my child. Neither of us do. I didn't want to know and our health insurance didn't allow us to find that out."

"Mr. O'Malley you need to focus. The Mara is going to destroy everything you love. The only way to stop it is to do exactly what I tell you. Do you understand that!"

"Yes!"

"Are you going to do exactly what I tell you?"

"Just point me in the right direction, and I'll do whatever you say!"

"Very good. Now what is the first thing you are thinking?"

Ben looked around the room and noted a small square on the wall with a spiral on it. "What is that?"

"Very perceptive of you Mr O'Malley. That is a psychic device which allows me to track and monitor the Mara." (And indeed at that moment, there was an identical device in the car that was transporting Riley to Soho.) "Among its other benefits, it allows me to instill post-hypnotic commands into people. That is how I escaped the Cult of the Mara after assassinating its leader. To take another example, very shortly I am going to say something completely untrue, and you are not going to object to what I say."

"Why would you do something like that?" But just then Riley arrived. The man who escorted her showed no signs of politeness now as he bullied the pregnant woman into a nearby chair. "Good afternoon Mrs O'Malley. Since my associate has not been clear, allow me to explain your situation. Your husband enjoys gambling. As such he is now $15,000 in debt. He is unable to pay, and because of future obligations, will be unable to pay for the foreseeable future. Clearly this is an undesirable result which must be remedied."

Ben shot up bolt upright. "Please don't hurt her!"

"Oh, _she's_ not in any immediate danger." A blow to the head sunk Ben to the floor. The thug who brought in Riley had a twin.

 **The bar**

Ronnie gasped. Not only did she realize that she couldn't place where Tara was, she realized something far worse. Although she was in one of the most densely populated places on the earth, and in a public place, she was quite alone. Alone, and she could feel the Mara right behind her, ready to lick her left ear like a lover.  
 **  
The TARDIS**

The Doctor whipped out his sonic screwdriver that disrupted the videoscreen and several other nearby devices. "Over there!" he shouted as pointed to a corner that served as a natural blind spot. Once there he took out almost all of his remaining devices. As he looked them over he whispered to Clara. "Good news about Adam!"

"He's alive?"

"What? No, he's quite dead. But the Mara doesn't realize there's a computer in his head, and I can still use it to try to stop the Mara."

And then the cloister bell suddenly stopped. So did the Doctor and Clara for a few awful seconds. Then the Mara spoke. "I'm having trouble hearing you Doctor. But I've taken complete control of the TARDIS. This isn't one of my cunning lies. Turning off that glorified alarm clock was the last thing I had to do."

A farrago of sounds appeared, as the Mara encountered music of all types from all of history. The Doctor quickly tampered with his remaining gadgets. "Clara, I can still defeat the Mara. But I need you to draw its fire for a couple of more minutes." He handed her the screwdriver. "You need to run as fast as you can thirty metres in that direction. You'll reach a staircase and have to start climbing it. Every ten seconds you must create a sonic pulse with that particular button for as long as you can."

"I'm not going to survive this, am I?"

"No. But I promise you that if you do this, not only can I defeat the Mara, but I can promise you further that nobody will have died this day." He paused very briefly. "Now do you trust me?"

"Absolutely." She ran off and started shouting. "Hey you, the Mara! That's right, it's me! Why don't you try taking on a real opponent!?"

 **Columbia**

"It's happening! It's actually happening!" Danny looked at Simon and thought he saw his orgasm face. He was wrong: what Simon was feeling was infinitely more intense than any orgasm that either man would ever feel. The machines were not only running smoothly in Columbia, but also in laboratories all over the world. "This is the greatest moment of my life! Just a few more seconds..."  
 **  
**But just then several fuses burst. The converted cyclotron made some very alarming noise before it started to shut down. "Can't we add more power?" asked Danny.

"That would just mean a bigger bang when the experiment fails again." Simon rushed to the phone bank that connected him to the other labs. "What's going on over there?"

"100% failure out here in California," reported Coogan smugly.

"It's complete female nipples up over here," rued Raj.

Simon spoke to Cambridge. "Pr. Hawking, what do you have?"

The mechanical voice spoke. "The path of science is a complex one. Often it is one of petty drudgery and incremental progress. But sometimes, it is one of ideas of extraordinary beauty and luminous perfection." Hawking paused. "Not all of them pan out."  
 **  
The Bar**

Ronnie wanted to scream. She wanted to burst out of the bar and run miles and miles away. But there was nothing she could do. The fear grew more and more, and all of her ingenuity could avail her nothing. Then she sneezed.

"Are you all right Ronnie?"

Ronnie turned towards Tara. "You know, I think _everything_ is going to be all right."  
 **  
Soho**

Riley saw the two thugs beat up her husband. But she could not move, could not scream, could not even speak. Turlough sat down in Ben's former chair and spoke to her.

"You are wondering why you can't move. I have a friend. Yes, let's call him that. He is opposed to suffering in general. In particular, he would find your suffering quite unnecessary. So I have sought to mitigate it. What you are seeing is undoubtedly very stressful. It might, as you...Americans say, break your heart. Your soul, they say, might die a little. But those are only metaphors. I have ensured that your body will remain calm and in perfect health. Shortly, your body will be able to move about normally. Your body will not go into shock, and it will not do anything that will hurt your child. You will not even cry.

"My friend would, if he were here, tell you that your husband truly loves you. So I will tell you that, knowing that you will forget that, along with my appearance and any other incriminating details. Now if you try not to speak too loudly and not too emotionally, you might even be able to speak a few words." Turlough got up to his desk and Riley saw more and more blows rain down on her husband.  
 **  
The TARDIS**

Clara was very brave. She did not scream at all when she died. The Doctor was too busy reading his remaining gadgets, while the Mara drank in all the knowledge of time and space through its control of the TARDIS. Then the musical cacophony stopped as it randomly chose one song to play: "Old Days."

The Doctor took Clara's cell phone and started to dial. This was going to be close. But then he dropped it as it overheated and burst into flames. Looking over his devices he realized this was more an automatic reaction than a cunning counter-stroke from the Mara. The Mara was too intoxicated with the information to be fully conscious of what the Doctor had tried to do. The Doctor pulled out the device he had confiscated from Adam at Cavallax. He quickly smothered the flames and started cannibalizing the parts from the cell phone and other objects.

The Mara had shown joy in the suffering it had caused. It had taken deep pleasure in its malice. But as Chicago's ordinarily innocuous lyrics played around it, for the first time in its existence, it was happy.  
 **  
Soho**

The twins had finished their work. "Arrangements have been made to pay you. Go now and don't look back." As the two left, Turlough turned on a radio. "Old Days" appeared, in complete harmony with the TARDIS. "What perfect timing," he said, as he opened a secret compartment in his desk and procured a revolver. Looking at Ben's beaten body, it was still possible to hope, or to delude onself, that with prompt assistance a complete recovery could be made. But then Riley saw Turlough with the revolver. She could not scream but she could still whimper pathetically. "What are you going to do? What are you going to do?"

"Coup de grace, Mrs. O'Malley, coup de grace." And he aimed the revolver at the back of Ben's barely conscious head.

 **The TARDIS**

The Doctor quickly tweeted to Turlough the temporal coordinates where the Mara would appear. The last thing to add was _why_ the Mara had reappeared. The Doctor typed PROBLY. The 140th character was a heart. The Doctor pressed send.

A single shot rang out. Suddenly, the Doctor, Clara and Adam reappeared in the TARDIS console room. "I'm alive!" Adam shouted. "I'm not dead! The cloister bell is finally off!" Just then a series of high pitched whines began. There were followed by a series of ugly noises each louder and more irritating than the last. The Doctor quickly flicked some switches while Clara and Adam futilely tried to keep the noise out by blocking their ears. Suddenly the TARDIS landed, and the Doctor quickly rushed the other two outside. He locked the door behind him, mercifully quieting the noise.

"Two things. First, the Mara has been defeated. I deliberately allowed it to take over the TARDIS. When it did so, it removed some of its own restrictions it had placed earlier on it, so I was able to send a message to a friend. He went back in time and prevented the Mara from ever manifesting in New York."

"So all the civilizations we saw destroyed, all the people we saw killed? None of that actually happened?" asked Clara.

"Precisely! Second, this has caused a rather large temporal anomaly. The extremely irritating noise we have just fled from is the TARDIS's rather convoluted alarm for such an anomaly. We have arrived in New York on Saturday, May 16, 2014. We are apparently in someplace called Queens. Or Staten Island. Or Long Island. Regardless, if you could look at your watches, in precisely 58 minutes and 28 seconds, the anomaly will end and the TARDIS will be able to leave. Since the alarm would all drive us mad, I suggest we take a walk and come back just before that happens."

The three all left separately. The Doctor soon sat down on a bench. Across the street, half a block away was a church. There were a lot of cars nearby and it was clear that there was a service going on. And today would have been a lovely day for a wedding.

But it wasn't a bride who came out the entrance, but a coffin. Danny and Simon were among the pallbearers. Ronnie was behind them, but the Doctor couldn't see her because just that moment Turlough materialized beside him on the bench. "It's a funny story actually. More than a quarter century ago, a young bartender named Ben O'Malley was murdered in front of his pregnant wife, supposedly for foolishly accumulating gambling debts. His widow didn't have a very pleasant time living alone. She tried very hard, although she didn't have a lot of money. And then one day when her daughter was seven, Mrs O'Malley saw her daughter playing in the street from her fifth floor apartment. She walked to the fire escape, and then walked right off it. It wasn't easy for Emma O'Malley to be an orphan. Her parents' friends tried very hard. It wasn't enough. A few days ago, she took a bath and slit her wrists. There are rumours that she was pregnant, but I don't think we need to go into those sordid details.

"I've never cared for these human sentimentalities, a crude ideology covering up brute Darwinian impulses."

"I see." The Doctor paused. "And how is your brother?"

"Not at all well. How clever of you to ask Doctor." It was not as if Turlough felt guilty, but he did feel the need to explain himself. "I saw all three of them in Central Park a year after the Mara manifested itself. I immediately realized that it was their love that summoned the Mara. I found out that a year earlier Ben O'Malley had given his rather pregnant wife a lovely afternoon and evening. It wasn't as if he hadn't shown her love before. But that day she was truly happy. Even worse, her husband had given her hope. Hope is a terrible thing, Doctor. It's odd that you don't realize it."

"There should have been another way."

"I thought you'd say that. I could have tricked them into being apart. But that would only have delayed the problem. Not solved it.

"You say I don't appreciate them Doctor. But you decided long ago, you couldn't really appreciate them either. The only one who truly understood what they had was the Mara. The odd thing was that there was a time when you could have appreciated it. Not the sordid reproductive aspects, of course. The something that humans supposedly appreciate that goes beyond selfless altruism and boundless compassion for fellow creatures. What you encountered on Voseth 4 was distinctly different. You had taken Perpugilliam Brown to that planet, the greatest botanical garden in the whole universe. Incidentally I always thought your sixth incarnation was underrated. No, not underrated, as not having met its full potential. Anyway Peri was spending a month enjoying herself and one day you met a soothsayer. She promised you that you would meet someone you would truly love. There was a time you thought you loved Rose Tyler and River Song. But that was just survivor's guilt. No, this love was neither Human nor Gallifreyan. You would love her, and you would die when you realized that she loved someone else. Humans speak of their hearts breaking, but your heart would literally do so. That's why timelords with their 12 regenerations, or even ordinary Gallifreyans with only their six are rational enough to avoid love. And so you decided to do as well.

"It occurs to me that everything that happened after that, your trial, your next regeneration, the destruction of Skaro, your encounter with Fenric, the Time War, the Bad Wolf, your first encounter with the Weeping Angels, the Reality Bomb, the conspiracy of the Silence, the reappearance of Gallifrey, the return of the Master, as well as the final enemy, the one you should fear as no other, all that was a consequence of your choice."

"Speaking of enemies, somebody helped the Mara become so powerful."

"Someone did indeed. But whomever or whatever it was, was extraordinarily cunning. I met a 'Cult of the Mara.' But they're idiots, and easily disposed of. I tried looking for temporal anomalies, but they hid their work very well." And Turlough handed some graphs and charts to the Doctor, who was not happy when he saw them.

"This is very bad. As I've said before, this is very not good. See these spirals? That's the signature of the Cephestians. When the Celestial Intervention Agency wanted someone to do their dirty work, they hired them to do it."

"So they're behind it?"

"Clearly not. The Daleks realized what they were doing and destroyed their planet in the second year of the time war."

"So that leaves someone who knew their work. Like the Daleks or the Time Lords."

"It's not like the Daleks to use something they know so poorly, like emotion. And I should be able to detect them and the Time Lords if they were in this time zone."

"How about the Master?"

"It would be like the Master to get involved in something so incredibly dangerous. But it's not like him to get away with it."

"Well you know more about vastly powerful cosmic figures than I do. The only other entity that I can suggest is the Black Guardian."

"I can assure you absolutely that it isn't him."

"You seem very definitive on the subject."

"With good reason. When Rassilon and his cronies were planning the Final Sanction in the final year of the Time War, they realized the Guardians could stop them. So they had both of them assassinated."

For the first time since he had received the Doctor's tweet, Turlough was genuinely alarmed. He regained his composure. "I took a photograph of the O'Malleys when I saw them in Central Park. I used a special folder, so it still exists despite the time change. I suppose you'd like to have it."

"Yes. Very much." Turlough handed him the photograph. The Doctor looked at Ben and Riley smiling at their laughing nine month old daughter. He put it the inside pocket over his right heart where he kept it with another one.

The two got up and Turlough took his leave. "Goodbye Doctor. All things being equal, this went much better than you had any reason to expect. There have always been those who leave Omelas, looking for something better. But you left Omelas long ago Doctor, and now near the end you have no choice but to return, empty-handed." The two departed, neither noticing the attractive nun who watched them from a distance. She smiled, and why shouldn't she? She hadn't aged a day in more than a quarter-century.


End file.
